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Comments
Oh the whole "The US must spend money on the army, otherwise the Boogeyman of our times (Communism, terrorism) will win!" argument is bullshit, don't get me wrong, but I definetly think that a country with a big army should lend said military capabilities to a country that needs them.
Using the argument that a state healthcare system would cause a massive budget deficit kind of overlooks the fact that the US already has a massive budget deficit. Apart from military spending, you could argue that there are several things mentioned in the OP that are less important for the government to do than healthcare.
Personally, I'd rather have a state healhcare system than send a man to Mars. Or even spend money on weather forecasts, which would be done privately anyway if the government didn't do it.
Sorry, it looks like I misinterpreted the OP.
Are you familiar with the story behind the founding of the FDA? I think it would probably be possible to dial it back a bit, but...I'd rather not get rid of it entirely.
The postal service, though, is kinda pointless.
INUH,
Are you familiar with the story behind the founding of the FDA? I think it would probably be possible to dial it back a bit, but...I'd rather not get rid of it entirely.
Not really, feel free to talk about that a bit or send me a link.
I think you do have a point and I imagine that there are very few people who say that we should get rid of the FDA entirely. I guess that was more of a response to the "would have died" without the FDA/USDA part which I would consider a bit of exaggeration. Maybe the Department of Labor/the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration stuff would illustrate that point better than the FDA example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle#Public_and_federal_response
Basically, things were bad before the FDA was founded.
Well, here's how the market works. As a consumer, you will take into account those things that you are aware of. So if you can see that the supermarket meat section is buzzing with flies, you can decide not to buy from them, or to only buy meat from them for much cheaper price. However, it's very hard to take into account things that you are not aware of. What if, say, the sausage you bought at the supermarket was packaged very prettily but actually processed at a facility contaminated with salmonella?
The free market is the best solution when information is equal on all sides. When one side has more information than the other, the free market runs into problems, and you need some corrective tweaking.
A classic example of the GMH's point - the UK energy market. There are a number of supply companies from which you can buy your electricity/gas. Now, it's all the same gas or electricity - no difference in quality. The supply companies don't even produce it themselves. The only difference is price, and unfortunately in spite of the efforts of regulators, they use such complicated tariff systems that you'd need to be an expert to distinguish between them.
Much the same is true of the various train operators and IMHO, that's why they should all be re-nationalised.
Incidentally, regarding roads, have you ever been to Italy? Their equivalent of the interstate is mostly privately owned and funded by tolls. I found it to be significantly better-maintained than any road I'd seen in the US.
Hmm, the best indicator of how good the healthcare system of a country is the infant mortality rate.
US is currently ranked thirty-fourth in that category.
Or forty-sixth, depending on which ranking you use.
Which for the country with the highest spending on healthcare in the OECD isn't that great is it?
Yeah, really not very impressive.
US ranks pretty low in a lot of things we're supposed to be good at.
Hmm, a 2001 study into 5 US states found that 46% of all bankruptcies were due to medical expenses.
edit: Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5,000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters had health insurance. Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6%. In logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic factors, the odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause was 2.38-fold higher in 2007 than in 2001.
From another study which was based on the first one.
Did you ever read the replies you got when you posted this in OTC?
Ah, no, sorry, I was kinda sleep-deprived last night, and I forgot to...>.>
Also, I have a pattern of going into OTC, posting something, saying "wait, what the hell am I doing in OTC?" then leaving.
Right. Looked over that. Responding to all the points against mine (I'd cross-post them to OTC, but I've been trying to cut down on even going there):
First was the statement that private services don't deliver everywhere. Is this actually true? Because the house my parents inherited from my grandparents is pretty far from civilization, to the point of being on a dirt road in a zone that doesn't even get any sort of TV except satellite, and UPS delivers there.
Second was that the increased use of online stores means the postal service will be more important. How many online stores use it exclusively?
Third, someone claimed it worked just fine. Well, I for one have been getting everything that arrived in the mail in the last five years to be folded neatly in half, even if labeled "do not bend." We've complained, but they won't do anything. So...if some people find that to be true, it's not the case around where I am.
Fourth, the argument that it employs people. I suppose that's good, but on its own I'm not sure that justifies having a service whose only leg up on the competition is that they do junk mail as well as stuff you actually want.
Think that about covers it.
I don't think I'll be able to house an entire war zone inside my body.
Counterpoint:
Oh God.
That movie.
Bee wins IJBM.
Agreed. Glenn, we want Bee as an admin >:C
I have no idea what movie that was from.
Re postal/mail service: I know that when I sell books on half.ebay.com (which is all I sell online anyway), I send it by media mail. I like that shipping is cheap.
osmosis jones
never heard of it
well now you have
I'll handle the other stuff later but I'm just sayin.
^ That's pretty shocking. The Royal Mail will deliver anywhere in the UK. Admittedly, our remote areas aren't quite as remote as those in the US, and the service is subsidised by government for the moment.
But the Royal Mail is the official mail service in the UK, right?
UPS, or "United Parcel Service", is a private company that just happens to have a nice-sounding name.
It's complicated. Royal Mail was the official mail service for everything, but it no longer has a monopoly except in respect of non-business letters and it's no longer totally owned by the government. There are plans to totally privatise it.
FWIW, UPS operate over here too.