> Safeway won’t starve and die if I decide to buy from Fred Meyer.
Ironically, you (along with a significant number of others) deciding to buy from a competitor will eventually lead to financial trouble for Safeway and thus to layoffs and losses for their investors (pension funds among them).
So, do you find your decision to buy from Fred Meyer "absolutely immoral"?!
I don’t think there’s any point in having a conversation with you if you don’t see any difference between employment, community, civic duty and market. If you treat people as a market product, then we have even less to discuss.
Ignoring market realities and proclaiming to care about noble but unrealistic ideological goals is how the communist regime I grew up under managed to fail to even feed its population.
It seems like you have an unfalsifiable belief. If one side raises more money and wins, it because of the money. If one side raises more money and loses, it is still the money because the other side spend it more effectively.
And the fact that a 3rd party supports an opponent does not kill any politician's career. Biden retired by himself, following his own party's pressure. And Harris is still around, I believe.
> All empirical evidence shows that single payer systems work better, producing far better outcomes at lower cost, than the US system.
Agreed. Also, all empirical evidence shows that free-markets work better, producing far better outcomes at lower cost than either. Just look around at any less-regulated and thus free-er markets. Or just "reject the evidence" - your choice.
> die
I am middle-aged so I used plenty of health services in my life. I always had choices when in came to price and level of care and treatment. None of them were for the "dying" case. But I do have an insurance specifically for that case. I am a rational being so I plan in advance. No need for a government bureaucrat to decide my health care for me just in case some day I may be incapacitated.
> greedy corporations who literally exist to extract the most money
Every single product and service I am using in my life is made by a corporation. The clothes I wear, the food I eat, the car I drive, the PC I am making my living on.
Government?! Decaying infrastructure, lines at the DMV, crappy schools and killer hospitals.
You may trust the government if you want, but I will never. However, you are the only one pushing your choice onto me and reducing my options. I am fine with you using private or governmental services but you won't allow me this freedom of choice.
> Time and time again large competing forces in the market are found to have colluded instead of directly competing with each other to drive price/cost down.
Collusion and cartels never work on the long run. It's an unstable equilibrium, the incentive to reduce prices to capture more market is too great.
> What is it that still makes you believe
Competition. It's the only force keeping humans honest. That's why we must treat any barriers of entry in a market with extreme care. The only "failed" or "captured" market is a strongly regulated one.
Markets can remain irrational, or colluding, far longer than you can stay solvent (or even alive).
For example, while the Phoebus cartel only really lasted from 1925 through to 1939, 1000hr incandescent light bulbs remain the standard offering till present day. Profitable market manipulations are sticky.
The whole notion that markets are efficient is just a mathematical construct that has become very dogmatic for people. But if you look into the details, markets are efficient under the assumptions of perfect information and infinite time. Neither of those conditions are present in the real world: we neither have perfect information nor infinite time.
> 1000hr incandescent light bulbs remain the standard offering till present day
This proves in fact that all the cartel did was establish a standard, an optimal average between various tradeoffs when building an incandescent lightbulb: brightness, cost, efficiency and life span. Yes, the cartel behaved anti-competitively. The effect on the market? Nil.
> perfect information and infinite time
There is absolutely no requirement for this for markets to work. Markets work just fine with partial information and just-in time. When new information and new market participants appear, markets will self-correct. The only way to prevent markets from working is through government intervention.
In facts, free markets are the only system we have that works with incomplete info and reacts in real-time. Central planning will happily decide on incomplete info then never adapt. We saw that during communism when the Party decided allocate X resources for production of Y and it always resulted in a glut or shortages. Central planning doesn't work.
It's the obvious reality around me here in Eastern Europe. We were starving under communism before 1990 but are now enjoying the amazing wealth capitalism brought.
In capitalism it is easy and transparent: price, with the side effect of aligning society interests with those of the selfish individual.
Of course the strange and heavily regulated US health-care system is obviously far far away from a free market.
In socialism it's much more random: black markets, lists, lotteries, friends and network of connections. The side effect is that the most productive individuals are discouraged and punished, with the whole society lagging in effect.
Case in point: the EU that started lagging the USA so much in growth that ended up having to beg for basic defense when a blood-thirsty neighbor came hungry for land.
When I'm unconscious in an ambulance, I'm definitely in a position to appreciate all that price transparency the free market has provided, so I can rationally weigh up all my options calmly and objectively while my organs are shutting down.
The great majority of health care is not emergency health care. Actually, the fact that emergency health is so expensive is quite the incentive for preventive medicine. And for the rest, insurance is necessary. Like for house fires or floods: I get the insurance but I also check my wires and pipes regularly.
> In socialism it's much more random: black markets, lists, lotteries, friends and network of connections. The side effect is that the most productive individuals are discouraged and punished, with the whole society lagging in effect.
Evidence: the vast majority of European countries who have socialized medicine and seem to be doing fine.
> the vast majority of European countries who have socialized medicine and seem to be doing fine
You do realize that the "vast majority" of European countries doesn't mean highly developed Western Europe, right?
Here in Central and Eastern Europe (where I live) socialized medicine is not "fine". You should visit some hospitals in Bulgaria or Romanian to get a more complete picture. We pay the state outrageous insurance costs every month then go and pay out-of-pocket in private hospitals when we actually need them.
>>In socialism it's much more random: black markets, lists, lotteries
>Evidence: the vast majority of European countries who have socialized medicine and seem to be doing fine.
That evidence of socialism working well, only works as long as there are enough resources to cover the needs of most people, basically some of the wealthier European countries.
But when those resources become scarce due to poor economic conditions and/or mismanagement, then you'll see the endless queues, black margets and nepotism running the system.
Evidence: former European communist countries who experienced both systems and where in some, nepotism to bypass lists still work to this day.
I think the 2024 Economics Nobel disproves this. It showed that nations with strong institutions create wealth - and it was a causative link they proved, not simply correlation.
How does that disprove what I said about abundance or lack thereof in socialized systems? Feels like an orthogonal issue.
Socialized systems don't work without abundance. How you generate that abundance is orthogonal to socialism since even countries that are wealthy on paper suffer from shortages and long waiting times in public healthcare leading to a gray-market of using connections to get ahead or more private use.
Both are true. Because when the abundance runs out, people start using nepotism to get what they need. You can see it in the tech job market now. More and more good jobs are only through networking. Meritocracy alone was enough during the times of abundance.
That's the difference between a corrupt and non-corrupt system rather than a capitalist vs socialist one. Nearly all European countries have an at least somewhat socialist healthcare system but in most you don't have to resort to those tactics.
the market / capitalism won’t correct itself, much people want to call it God/ perfect
Regulation, anti-trust laws try to correct somethings but many politicians are against those things because they limit the profit that can be made, profit first, that’s the corruption
Can't think of a socialist country, but invite you to visit the German system. Significantly less costly for society and objectively better for the people falling ill (or just having a baby born).
And no, no lists, no lotteries or any of that other lies the conservative US media is spewing out to keep the masses pacified.
I strongly believe, that if US citizens were to experience German healthcare for a year and having to go back to the US system, that there would be riots. Because I don’t think anyone with first hand experience of both systems would ever want to return to the US system.
Yep, loving my gesetzliche Krankenkasse (public health insurance, which is more like "highly regulated insurance"), even more than I liked the Privatkrankenversicherung (less highly regulated, but still with better guardrails than a lot of things I've seen in the States) I was on my first decade in the system here. Sure, there are some specialists who won't accept it, or who will give you a sooner appointment if you're private pay, but in that situation, you have the option of declaring that you're a self-payer that quarter, and your public insurance will reimburse in the amount they normally would have for that procedure or exam. For things like an MRI, the full retail cost in Germany is still much lower than in the US (it was about 600 EUR for my back a few years ago, while I was still privately insured, and I still had to wait for reimbursment).
Even once I do hit the income threshold to switch back to private (switching back to fulltime work), I'm pretty sure I won't.
As far as doctor choice goes, I feel like I have more on the public insurance here (like 90% of the population) than I did with UHC in the early 2000's back in the US. I certainly have fewer financial surprises.
Healthcare in the US seems to cost about double per capita what it does in other developed countries with universial/social healthcare. Public spending in US is on-par with others, and then private spending is that much again. Standard of healthcare I've heard (and would hope) is world class if you can pay, but still something seems broken there to be sure.
But you have lists, queues, lotteries, whatever you call it. That's not a lie. The fact you think lists are a vast right wing conspiracy demonstrates your government is not really forthcoming about your healthcare system. There are lists everywhere. There are ambulance wait times, hospital emergency wait times, various levels of urgent and elective treatment wait times. There are procedures and medicines and tests that are simply not covered at all.
Now, obviously USA has queues and lists too. And I could be wrong but I'm sure I've heard that US private insurance companies are notorious for not covering certain treatments and drugs as well. I don't know what it is exactly these right wing people are saying about healthcare, I thought they did not like the American "Obamacare" though.
There definitely are lists. You don't just get the surgery or therapy you need the next day. You get the next free slot in the list of people queuing at the hospital/practice that still has free slots.
For example the first appointment you can get at my state funded therapist if you call today, will be in june. How is that "not a list"?
Or like, if you call most public GPs in my neighbourhood, they'll all tell you they're full and don't have slots to take on any new patients and you should "try somewhere else". How is that "not a list"?
There are multiple lists here in the NL. I called for a surgery and got put on the fast list (she said that if it weren’t urgent, it would be over a year wait). Your doc has a lot of influence on how urgent things are and how far you are willing to travel. I got in to see a therapist in a matter of weeks, because I was willing to travel out of the city; otherwise it will be months. The doc can see the lines and give you recommendations; all you have to do is ask to be seen sooner.
Doesn't work like that in Austria. Or my doctor's were unwilling to fake urgency to bypass the waiting system for me.
Anyway, do you not realize the fault with the system in your logic? Because if everything becomes urgent in order to bypass queues, then nothing is urgent anymore.
It doesn't fix the problem, you're just scamming the system to get ahead of the problem.
In my case, there was no faking urgency. I was pointing out that urgency puts you in a different line that gets priority (basically, cancellations from the longer line).
For some other things, you can travel further away to where there is less demand for what you need, and if you're willing, you don't have to wait as long. These are all different "lines" and they're the ones doing the schedule.
I wish I could have waited one year. 0/10, would not recommend that proceedure. FWIW, it's a very common, usually also scheduled long in advance (even in the US). Pretty much every man has to get one over 40; so it makes sense the wait list is long unless you've got something else going on.
>Ok but urgency is a different kettle of fish. Life threatening cases get urgency everywhere and immediate care everywhere.
Except it doesn't. At least not in the United States. I have Peripheral Artery Disease.
I had two completely occluded arteries in my left leg and a third that was mostly occluded and had an aneurysm to boot.
One day, that third artery collapsed and I was left with zero blood flow to my left foot.
The doctor had me go to the Emergency Room to get testing and imaging to have surgery the following week.
He did not simply schedule surgery, as that would have required pre-approval from my insurance company and, in fact, the insurance company denied the claim and did not approve the procedure (which saved my foot) until six weeks later -- at which time I'd have had to have my foot amputated without the angioplasty and arterial bypass.
In fact, after surgery the insurance company continued to deny my claims and refused to authorize pain meds (they sliced my left leg open from my hip to my ankle and rooted around to use an existing vein to bypass the blockage on one of my arteries) for those same six weeks.
Oh yeah, US healthcare is so much better. /rolls eyes. My insurer would have forced me to wait until I required amputation if I hadn't just gone ahead on an emergency basis as suggested (because it's not unusual for that to happen) by the surgeon.
And in case you were wondering, yes I have private insurance and pay nearly $1200/month just for me. In fact, my deductible for next year just went up 20% and my annual out of pocket doubled, yet I'm still paying essentially the same premium.
No. The US healthcare system is completely fucked and I hope you don't die or lose important body parts learning that.
They do? If they misdiagnose something, you can end up in the slow line instead of the fast one, or vice versa. Compared to them, you have no influence.
Capitalism is the reason those treatments exist in the first place. I don't see many cutting-edge cancer treatments coming out of Cuba, North Korea or Venezuela.
> you also need to tax it, to deliver benefits to your population
The benefits were already delivered by that strong and prosperous economy in form of products and services.
Taxation is of course necessary to fund government spending but we need to keep in mind its drawbacks: from discouraging productive activity and slowing economic growth to giving politicians funds to buy votes with populist social policies.
Strong and prosperous economy built by progressive tax rate that used to tax up to 70% of non-work income, and now tax most of it 27-29% (depending on the corporate taxe of the state). The people who can use loopholes to avoid income taxes also pay reduced consumption tax (they usually pay the 'Use tax' rather than sale tax in the US, and can basically ignore VAT in Europe).
That's a common misconception. Although the top tax rates were indeed high, they kicked in at such high income levels and included so many deductions and loopholes that the effective tax rate were much closer to 50%.
And it makes sense, considering human nature and motivation: how much would you work considering the taxation? Me:
0-20%: I work as hard, want to excel and advance; I will take risks and invest in entrepreneurial endeavors
20-40%: I will do my duty, 9-5 then hit the door to spend time with the family; actively seek low-responsibility low risk high stability and lots of benefits government jobs
>40%: f that s, I will take my welfare payments and do various cash jobs without declaring that income; stay in my parents basement playing Xbox, smoking weed and jerking off
Counting consumption and estate taxes, i'm pretty sure you're just above 40%, so i guess you're on benefits?
In the US, unless you or your family own a holding with a lot of companies, the country taxes you between 50 and 40% (well, 30 and 50%, but food stamps are a bit weird so i will exclude them here). If you manage to get rich enough to be able to optimize your taxation, you are only taxed on company profits (so 21% to federal, 27-29% depending on your state) and sometime use taxe (sales taxe doesn't really apply anymore).
I have benefited from VAT-free school furniture most of my life because my uncle owned a company that bought office furniture regularly, and VAT-free sport clothing/tools because of a similar scheme by his wife and her companies.
I assure you you pay more taxes overall than people holding a few companies, and the more you own, the easier it get to avoid VAT and taxes in general (the owner of the Yacht my sister used to cook for was hired by the Yachting company as the captain or something for his vacations: avoided VAT on buying the Yacht, avoid VAT on a personal cook, avoid VAT on food. And if this specific company loose a small amount of money every year, tax write-off baby!).
Zucman wrote The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay.
It's an interesting read, and
Actually I've been lucky to practice what I preach all my life. Early in my career I realized that salaried employment is a rip-off: you pay through your nose for an illusion of safety and stability you don't want nor need. So I embraced risk and switched to contracting.
Having leftover income this way, I looked into investing. That's when I realized that being financially prudent, saving and investing was actually punished in the USA, taxwise, while borrowing and spending was encouraged. So I left the USA and returned to Eastern Europe.
Understanding that selling your time is much worse than selling a product drove me to entrepreneurship. Luck threw a little success my way and turned me financially independent.
Now I am semi-retired living from investments and small gigs and spending time with my family. My tax rate (income only, not consumption or VAT) is well under 20% on most of my income. I didn't do any effort to optimize it further, but I could if I must. I actually do not mind paying taxes, but I do respond to incentives and I am not afraid to relocate.
> If you manage to get rich enough to be able to optimize your taxation
Actually I did a little research and you don't need to be rich, you can do that with very little money. But then the gains for a few percent reduction aren't that great anyway so...
> you pay more taxes overall than people holding a few companies
I probably do, but I don't mind it. I think the rich are a net positive to our society because capitalism ensures they contribute to the society orders of magnitude more than they manage to keep. Also I lived under communism pre-1990 in a world without rich and I've seen how bad it is.
Sure, capitalism isn't perfect. No economic system is, mainly because they're all composed of us semi-evolved chimps. Every economic system has that problem. Getting rid of or severely constraining economic freedoms isn't a solution, it makes it worse.
Ok but if its taken you just three comments to get to "well... nothing is perfect I guess" where did that initial conviction come from?? Like why even play out this same argument if your heart isn't even in it? Is it a sense of obligation? If anything, you do your entire position a disservice by folding so quickly. It just goes to show noone deep down even believes these stories anymore, even we expect others to.
Like, yes, we are discussing an "imperfection" here! You are the one that asserting the greater perfection, not the lesser.
Ironically, you (along with a significant number of others) deciding to buy from a competitor will eventually lead to financial trouble for Safeway and thus to layoffs and losses for their investors (pension funds among them).
So, do you find your decision to buy from Fred Meyer "absolutely immoral"?!
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