Are you under the impression that there are no such things as private doctors in UHC societies?
I’d say people who work hard fulltime by definition have earned a living wage, so I don’t understand why you think management/owners automatically “earned” their money more than the guy getting paid minimum wage which you think is too high/shouldn’t exist? :dubious:
In Canada, if you are a doctor and you offer to treat someone at a fee the two of you mutually agree upon, you will lose your license to practice at best, or be fined and thrown in jail at worst. There are a whole list of treatments doctors are not allowed to make without going through the government bureaucracy, and you are not allowed to set your own prices. That’s why it’s called ‘Single Payer’.
Because ‘hard work’ is meaningless. I worked really hard last night to improve my high score in ‘Forza 4’, but I don’t expect anyone to pay me for it. Or should I be able to declare myself a ‘professional’ Forza 4 driver and force someone to pay me a ‘living wage’ for playing XBox?
If I want to earn money, I learn a skill that is useful to other people, then I contract with them to hire me and utilize that skill to help produce something that they can then sell at a profit. Or, I hire my services out to someone else who values them enough to pay me what I ask.
If I own a company and I determine that hiring you to sweep floors is worth $2/hr, I can offer that to you, and you are free to tell me to go to hell. If the government steps in and says floor-sweepers must earn $10/hr, I simply won’t hire floor sweepers. Why would I do so and lose $8/hr for my trouble?
If you demand that a business hire floor sweepers AND that they pay them a ‘living wage’, then you’re no better than Tony Soprano demanding that a local union give his boys a few ‘no-show’ jobs or risk being shut down by force. You’re simply using the force of government to extract money from business owners and give it to people who didn’t earn it instead of hiring someone to break their legs.
But aside from the moral aspect, you’re also damaging the economy of the country. If people can use government to force others to pay them a ‘living wage’ regardless of their skill or productivity, you reduce the incentive for people to learn skills that others actually value, and you wind up with a work force that doesn’t have the mix of skills most in demand by the rest of society.
In some cases, the consequences are tragic. The insistence of ‘progressives’ on 1st world wages, working conditions, and environmental standards for workers in 3rd world countries has helped to keep those countries in extreme poverty. It would be much better to allow them to use their comparative advantage of cheap labor so they can compete in the global marketplace. Over time, their wages and working conditions will grow as they become more productive.
People have no right to a ‘living wage’, and there’s not enough money in the world to provide one for everyone in the 3rd world. They must attain 1st world living standards the same way everyone else did - by learning to be more productive so that their actual labor has enough value that other people will voluntarily provide that wage. In other words, it’s a function of the amount of wealth they create, not the amount of labor they do.
Okay I didn’t know that but that doesn’t support your wide blanket statement which was:
So all I have to do is come up with private doctors who set their own fees up in one UHC country, or to choose their own patients, to contradict your sweeping statement. Is it your contention that I can’t do that, or do you want to roll back what you said?
I thought we were having a serious discussion.
Those third world laborers create billions for a few foreign rich people/corporations (for example, Nike), so they should be making more than a couple cents an hour for their share of those billions right?
You yourself JUST said that they would get a living wage when they create great wealth, which sweatshop laborers already do, so you’re for higher wages for them then.
They don’t create great wealth individually, however. They crank out a soccer ball, built out of materials sold elsewhere, shipped by another, resold by a yet another - and the money flows around.
Now - I am happy to purchase No Sweat clothing and goods whenever I can - but I have the income to support the higher prices. Others prefer to purchase the cheapest possible good (the great contradiction of union workers shopping at Wal Mart due to the low prices).
None of this has anything to do with a definition of Freedom, unless you want to talk about the freedom to import goods from other nations to resell in your home nation.
Sam Stone mentioned positive rights - I think that concept should be part of any discussion of Freedom:
Freedom in my opinion is made of negative rights. The more positive rights we create, the more we erode Freedom. It might be for the good, and I might support it - as I stated I am not a libertarian-anarchist. But there will be a cost.
Here is the allocated cost of a pair of Nike shoes:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/poli/nike/nike101-8.htm
How do those numbers work (it’s over 70$) when so many nikes sell for cheaper than that?
edit: Nevermind, you really should edit that if you can because at the link it explains the first segment is “Cost to Nike”, second is “Cost to Retailer” and 3rd is “Cost to consumer”.
My husband, who used to work in the trades and still knows people in them, told me an anecdote last night about those onerous retail labeling laws that “haven’t made anyone happy”:
In California there is a relatively new law requiring labeling whenever a toxic material “known to cause cancer” is present. This caused brass plumbing fixture manufacturers to pull all their merchandise off the shelves (and probably go sell it in other states without labeling laws). Why? Because they were using lead to make those fixtures.
The freedom of plumbing fixture manufacturers to sell whatever merchandise they choose was, indeed, impinged upon, but I for one can live with that if my freedom to not be poisoned is increased.
The freedom to know the truth is a fundamental freedom. Right now, Monsanto is pouring millions of dollars into an ad campaign against a grassroots effort to get GMO food labeled. Not banned, just LABELED. Not only that, they are lying grotesquely in these ads. I heard one ad stating that it will cost billions (yes, billions!) of dollars to change the labels. The FDA is contemplating a civil suit against them because they use the FDA seal in their ads.
When global corporations have millions of dollars to spare just to keep consumers from easily acquiring information about their products, explain how this protects individual freedom?
Fascinating. So a bill was passed changing the law on labeling in a way that was anti-corporation. That is a contradiction to the people in this thread who tell us that the corporations are more powerful than the government or the people.
House Bill 1583 did change the law in California, and it had an impact on plumbing manufacturers. Their industry group, however, was not powerful enough to stop the bill. It stopped the sale of brass fixtures with more than .25% lead content (the European level). It wasn’t a labelling law - it flat-out stopped the sale of those fixtures.
The “has something that causes cancer” stuff is more of a joke. Every gas station has those signs, and everybody still fills up.
One reason it is a joke is that labeling something without providing any other good option than buying it anyway doesn’t really solve the problem. What are you going to do instead? Ride a bike?
Bikes are a wonderful option for fit people in moderate weather living fairly close to their workplace who can arrive at their jobs sweaty in a town with bike lanes. The rest of us will just have to drive cars filled with cancer-causing gasoline.
Labeling all products with GMO corn in them will basically reveal that ALL corn that is not organic is GMO, and that more things than you can well imagine have corn in them. So if you can’t afford the surcharge on organic you will be forced to either eat GMO corn or else not eat corn at all (giving up a vast array of processed foods and drinks).
But knowledge is still the first step. If it wasn’t important, Monsanto wouldn’t be investing so heavily in its prevention.
I have to doubt this story. There is still a thriving plumbing industry in California; the hardware shops are filled with pipes and fittings and faucets and handles.
What you are describing would have left a gigantic market opportunity, which someone would immediately have filled.
(Two economists were walking down the street. One said, “Look! A dollar bill, there in the gutter.” The other said, “Nonsense; if there were, someone would have picked it up.”)
Cite please. I have never read anything by Ayn Rand that suggested doing as you wish without limitations.
You almost got it right with “pursuing only your self-interest without regard to anyone else’s well-being”. It is actually pursuing your self-interest without obligation to anyone else’s well being. There is a HUGE difference to my regarding your well being and my being legally obligated to your well being.
So, what industry isn’t regulated by the government?
Going further, what aspect of industry isn’t regulated by the government?
Going further, what leisure activity is free of government regulation?
Going further, is there any aspect of my life that is free of government regulation?
They have even taken it upon themselves to regulate smoking in the great outdoors.
Do you suggest it was Libertarians who advocated all this intrusiveness? Who is the champion of an ever intrusive nanny state? Not liberals you say, they only want reasonable regulations.
Progressives only want a balanced government that allows a free market…Name two big pushes by progressives advocating a free market economy, meaning deregulation, meaning getting governments hands out of business…you know, laissez-faire…do you know laissez-faire?
You believe that I am somehow obligated to labor to provide something for you?
What do you call someone who must labor, to provide the fruits of that labor, to another person?
And just for personal amusement, are you obligated to labor and remit what you earn to me and wouldn’t that be a wash? meaning it cancels each other out. because I haven’t received any checks in the mail. Can I now sue you because you aren’t providing for me?
That isn’t what free to move means. You are free to do what you are able to do. You are not free to reach in my pocket and take what i earned to be able to do what you want to do.
Could I have an example of a corporation oppressing me plz? I just haven’t received any notification from these rulers as to how I must behave or not behave, OR what the consequences will be if I disobey. Are you suggesting that Ford is putting people in jail? I am kind of unplugged, but things have gotten pretty bad out there.
There must be something wrong with your computer…what I read was:
Not that there should be NO SUCH THING AS FEDERAL LAW. You might call some repairmen…That thing is changing peoples posts around on you.
It wasn’t a blanket statement: It was a statement of fact. Economics is the study of scarcity. The fact that health care is expensive means that it is a scarce resource. Therefore, not everyone can have a ‘right’ to all the health care they want. Government does not provide unlimited, universal care. Government merely replaces private, voluntary transaction with force. Government-run health care necessarily involves rationing, because the price mechanism which controls demand through cost is removed.
But the simple fact remains: Because it takes humans to provide health care, your assertion of a ‘right’ to health care cannot be fulfilled without taking away the rights of health care providers.
Or even more simply: Let’s say you live in a town with one doctor, and ten people need emergency treatment. Who’s ‘right’ to health care gets trampled? And what happens if the doctor says, “Sorry, I’m retired” and refuses to treat anyone? Or what if one of the people needing treatment is the doctor’s wife, and he chooses to spend all his time on her? Are you going to allow that?
This is why the talk of ‘positive rights’ is an abuse of the language. The left has tried to hijack the philosophical concept of human rights and turn it into “things we think government should force people to do.” It’s Orwellian double-speak.
This is an idiotic defense. We’re talking about a ‘right’ to health care. The fact that there are still people in the health care business who are not under the thumb of the government has nothing to do with this.
Yeah, me too. So tell me: How is demanding a ‘living wage’ for playing XBox any more different than demanding a ‘living wage’ for sweeping floors, when the value of that sweeping is worth only a fraction of that amount to my employer? Either way, I’m demanding more money than my activities justify.
How much money you earn is not a question of ‘rights’. It’s a question of how much value you can generate for people who are willing to trade with you. I get paid far more than minimum wage, because my employer has determined that my labor is worth that, and then some.
Do you know why auto workers get paid three to five times the minimum wage, and shoe makers in Indonesia get a buck or two per hour? It’s not because the people in indonesia are exploited, or because auto workers have formed a union. The fact is, auto workers get paid more because their labor is magnified by billions of dollars of capital investment, and because they live in a country with an economic system that allows for division of labor, specialization, and free transactions.
Laborers in the third world make as little as they do because that’s all their labor is worth. You can’t change that by fiat. You can’t wave a magic wand and make their labor worth ten times as much. And why is their labor worth so little? Primarily because of the lack of capital investment in the infrastructure. Lack of education, distance to major markets, political instability, high tariffs, political corruption… There are many factors which keep the wages of 3rd world workers down, but one of them is NOT the greed of capitalists. If those workers were truly more productive than their wages imply, competitors would bid up their labor.
And that’s exactly what happens as 3rd world countries gain investment capital. South Korea used to be the sweatshop to the world. Now it’s a 1st world country. Singapore and Hong Kong also started as sweat shop countries, and now have the highest per-capita incomes in the world.
They didn’t get that way because their people had a ‘right’ to such incomes. They got there by rejecting the concept of such rights and allowing the price of labor to find its natural level. That attracted investment, which grew their economies, built their infrastructure, and educated their people. And it’s that first, low-income rung of the ladder of prosperity that talk of a ‘right to a living wage’ seeks to cut off.
Translation: Our politicians are corrupt. They are overstepping their bounds and should be reined in. I agree with you a whole lot.
Blaming corporations who are doing what they can get away with, is like blaming the guy who slept with your wife. He didn’t make any promises to you dummy. It was your wife who broke her vows…That is the problem in the situation, the one who is corrupt.
If you’re going to debate this stuff, you should at least know the parameters of the debate within an order of magnitude or so. No one in third world is being paid ‘a couple of cents per hour’. The worst ‘sweat shops’ in the world pay on the order of .50/hr, and many of them pay $1-$3 per hour. Workers at FoxConn in China, for example, get paid roughly 400/mo. The lowest price I could find for factory labor anywhere in the world was for garment factories in Bangladesh, which were paying somewhere around .15-.20 per hour.
FoxConn is a good example of what I’m talking about. Despite the problems with overwork due to high demand for iPhones, FoxConn workers are MUCH better off than their parents or their rural cousins. They make $400/mo now - before all that capital investment came into the region after it was declared a ‘free capitalist zone’ by the Chinese where labor prices were free to seek their own level, the average wage was about 1/10 of that amount. Had those workers had a requirement for a ‘living wage’ be imposed on them by the international left, the investment that allowed for the productivity gains which provided a real wage gain would never have happened and they’d still be in abject poverty.
No, they don’t. Those laborers have to compete against laborers elsewhere who are closer to markets, more educated, and in countries with better infrastructures. The only way they can compete is to lower the price of their labor. And if Nike makes billions, it’s only because they invest billions in their business. It’s not because of the laborers in 3rd world countries. The laborers provide a marginal value only somewhat higher than the wage they are paid. If they provided substantially more value than that, other companies would bid for their labor and drive the price up.
I take this incoherency to mean “Why should I pay your way?”
Because, you see, the more mobile the population is, the more likely they will be able to move to states with laws that best suit their personal philosophies. With freedom of movement and freedom of healthcare (as in, universal and non-employer-based) they will be able to more easily find the employer that can make the most use of their talents and form the most synergistic relationships.
It’s a net benefit to everyone to make it as easy as possible for everyone to relocate. It’s a net benefit to everyone to make it as easy as possible for everyone to get healthcare. It’s a net benefit to everyone to make it as easy as possible for everyone to get education.
And for people that fervently believe in states’ rights, they will find more general acceptance for states’ rights among everyone else if it’s easy to pack up and leave a state you don’t like and move to a state you do.
And given that a dollar out of your pocket doesn’t mean you can’t eat tomorrow while it might for someone else, yes, you’ll get taxed. Suck it up. That’s the price you pay to live in a good society.