Not part of an agenda? You mean they weren’t advocating for low taxes, it was strictly a scholarly lark purely for educational purposes?
And that’s the problem we should be dealing with. Sometimes a private corporation engages in false advertising, or monopolistic collusion; sometimes they pay less than the minimum wage, and sometimes they provide an unsafe workplace. And we step in to fix that, instead of scrapping the whole thing in favor of replacing it with a government program.
If there’s a pattern of avoiding contractual obligations, then we can either (a) address that, or (b) throw up our hands and declare the whole thing a failure. Why choose the latter?
Why do you think the authors of that article would lie about every single study they cited? Do you bring this same disbelief of articles that cite studies to articles about global warking or the need for health care reform?
Who said they lied? Assuming their summaries of the various papers accurately summarize the research, so what? That doesn’t make the conclusion “lower taxes = higher growth” true. At best, all it establishes is that there is research out there that may support the proposition that lower taxes leads to higher economic growth. Whoop-de-fucking-do.
The insurance companies have set themselves up to be exempt from anti-trust laws. Why is that? How does that hold down prices.? Of course it does not. There is nothing in the Medical system to put a downward force on costs. The entire system is a self serving mess that should be shit canned. It has proven without a doubt, that it does not work. There are no saving graces in the health care industry. It does not work. It cheats its customers and raises overall costs.
Well, he’s got you there, you know. All true economists agree with RR, as everybody knows. Really, there is no academic support for any other position. Everybody knows big government is bad, even if nobody seems to be able to tell us what big government is. But its bad, all the real experts agree.
:rolleyes: The article shows my beliefs are not based on pure fantasy. I don’t care if you care about this, but other posters challenged me to cite what I said, and I did.
Luci, did you see that I responded to this above? The article cites studies discussing negative effects of higher taxes. So, if one wants to raise taxes, these studies would indicate that raising taxes would have a negative effect. Your insistence that I need to define “big government” is just an excuse to dismiss this idea while hanging on to the merest shred of pretense that you are actually making an argument yourself.
If we were taxing everyone $1 a year, would higher taxes be bad for the country?
No? Well then I suppose it’s a matter of opinion as to where the line between* good for the country* and bad for the country is. And your opinion is based on your blind, stupid, ideology.
Which is why no one takes you seriously. 
How has thus become about taxes? Of course it is because our conservative hate paying taxes more than they care about the health and welfare of other citizens in America. Yet they don’t seem to be as offended that the insurance companies are cheating them. I suppose there is a heirarchy. You can sit on the poor , that is OK. But you don’t stand up to corporations. They are our benefactors.
And YOUR opinion is based on YOUR blind, stupid ideology. So I guess we are even.
Not at all. I form my opinions based on facts. You started with your opinions and ignore facts that oppose them.
You’re an idiot. Srsly.
Rand, nothing is ever that simple. “Big government is bad” is an expression that belongs in a child’s Big Golden Book of Political Theory, not in a discussion amongst educated adults.
For instance, you offer us academic studies to support your claim, apparently in all innocence, apparently unaware that enomics is a marvelously flexible study, since it is not tethered to the constraints of other sciences. Marxist economics has floundered, as well it might, but there remain any number of academic studies from a Marxist viewpoint, wholly contradictory to the academic studies you offer for proof.
Who’s to say that your version of academic economics won’t end up on the ash heap of history tomorrow? Hell, there still are scholars working feverishly to prove that Keynes was full of beans, even as he remains one of the most widely respected scholars of our time.
And we aren’t even broaching the question of economic justice, which is for us lefties the issue. An economy that oppresses the working classes and rewards the idle rich is not a good economy in our eyes regardless of how robustly it may be growing, how well compensated its tax attorneys may be. Or if an economy is growing robustly but spending hugely on a military capacity rather than on the well-being of its people, it doesn’t matter how well its growing, its not doing the job.
One cannot escape the impression that you haven’t given these issues much thought, that you don’t talk to people who disagee with you. You are offering simplistic conservative platitudes for situations far too complex to be expressed in such rudimentary terms.
Which is largely why I keep harping at you for a definition of “big government”. I am trying to point out to you that such a notion is hopelessly simplistic. I doubt very much that I will benefit from you defining “big government”. But I think that you might.
You are wrong. You don’t do that. You filter the “facts” through your beliefs. The only thing that really exists is your perception of the facts.
Rly? You should know by now that I like when idiots call me an idiot. So, thanks man.
Can you explain what you mean by this?
That’s how science works, and it’s a good thing.
Your ideology says that “economic justice” is a good thing and “spending on a military capacity” while not thinking about “the well-being of its people” (as you define “well-beling”) is a bad thing. After all this, do you still want to argue that I am ignoring the facts and being ideological while you are arguing based only on the facts? All of the above shows your ideology.
Just what in hell do you think I’m doing right this very second?
Yeah, good thing you don’t do that. Oh wait, you do.
Buddy, I’ve spent more bandwidth defining my concept of “big government” on this here SDMB than any other of god’s creatures.
Not a bit. You can question reality all you want, but you have to address the world as if it is real. You are putting unscientific ideology up against facts. You are no better than a creationist railing against biology.
I’ll leave it to the peanut gallery as to which of us is the drooling moron.
You’re a pathetic child living in a fantasy world. Don’t pretend you’ve done any hard lifting when it comes to thinking out your ideology.
You say this after I post lots of cites. Whatever bro. Keep clinging to the notion that you alone, unique among humans, are able to see “actual facts” as opposed to the facts as filered through your beliefs. It doesn’t bother me for you to be so wrong.
I have no doubt on whose side the SDMB peanut gallery will come down.
I’ve struggled with my ideology day after day and displayed the results here for the world to see. You think “if I see a problem, I want the government to solve it” without examining all the results of that belief. I’ve done the work, you haven’t done shit but stamp your foot and complain about what you want to happen. And somehow I’m the child? 
I accept gravity as a part of my world view because even empty-heads like you stay attached to the ground. I accept AGW as a part of my world view, because the vast majority of professional climate scientists qualified to judge the data find it to be credible. I find some form of UHC to be a good idea because all the first world countries with it do way, way fucking better than us at less cost. You ignore that and instead assume, with no evidence, that there is a magical Americans Must Be Sick effect. It’s stupid. And you’ve done so throughout this thread.
As I say, your stupidity is self-evident. And you aren’t man enough to face the fact that you’re an empty ideologue.
Hah. You start from your opinion and work back. Just like a creationist does. You should start a Moron Economics Museum in Kentucky.
Not at all. I see a problem, like the lack of available HC or pre-existing conditions and say, “What is a solution for that?” As it happens all of the evidence says that UHC is the smartest answer. Of the actual options we have the Senate Bill is the best available. Because of facts. Because of the fact that to get rid of Pre-Existing Conditions you need a mandate. And if you have a mandate you need subsides. This is the Senate bill. You’re too stupid to even know what you’re railing against.
No you’ve dug and dug and dug for something, anything that supports your bullshit fantasy. You haven’t looked at the issue and weighed evidence, you’ve picked through a mountain of opposing evidence for flecks that support your bullshit fairy tales.
You exist in a fantasy world and pretend that things that are not true, are. That sounds childish.
Lobo, I’m not going to respond to your post. I’ll let it stand as a self-indictment of your worldview. With its emphasis on ad hominem attack and lack of self-awareess, I really couldn’t do any better.
No sweat. I know I can’t logic you out of this. You aren’t basing your world view on logic. Reason can’t fight a mind dead-set on wishful thinking.
Right back atcha, bub. “Let’s get the gummint so solve it” is wishful thinking in the extreme.
Not if there are dozens of examples of governments doing it for less money with better results.
And no examples of the method you champion working.
So, you see, not everyone is as vapid and un-thinking as you.