From: meekerdb <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2014 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: real A.I.
On 12/19/2014 11:33 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
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[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of meekerdb
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2014 10:53 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: real A.I. On 12/18/2014 10:44 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via
Everything List wrote:
From: meekerdb
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2014 11:06 AM. On 12/18/2014 10:16 AM, 'Chris
de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jason Resch
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2014 12:25 AM
On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 6:07 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote: On 12/16/2014 10:15 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
Hi Liz, On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 7:51 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote:
What is funny - as well as sad and frightening - is the number of people here
who apparently don't believe in democracy, even in principle. Democracy is the
idea that we can elect people to do things for everyone else (the NHS,
conservation, social security, infrastructure, regulations, police, army
science etc etc). All of the things you mention are run by unelected
bureaucrats with long careers, who see politicians come and go. I highly
recommend the British show "Yes, Prime Minister!" to learn about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmXzGI0XP7M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeF_o1Ss1NQ
Yet all I can see here is people saying that it doesn't work. I think the
truth is that it can be hijacked and THEN it doesn't work. The NHS (despite
everything) was one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century, after
all. And it was introduced by a government because of its beliefs and
principles.
The NHS is the sort of thing that should worry an Ecologist, because it's
based on infinite growth. Both the European system (based on infinite
demographic growth) and the Anglo (based on infinite economic growth). I also
feel that it serves mostly to fix a problem created by the government itself in
a previous regulatory wave. The barriers to competition in the practice of
healthcare are so high that it becomes unaffordable without insurance or
subsidy.
Health care isn't well regulated by competition because the consumer is ill
equipped to judge the necessity or the quality of service and the most
expensive service tends to a one-time event for the consumer. Worse, the
healthcare industry has gotten the US government to pass laws making it exempt
from monopolistic practices, price fixing, charging people different amounts
for the same service, forbidding reimportation of medicine, restricting the
number of MRI machines in a given area. It's what leads to people being charged
$60,000 for two bottles of anti-venom that cost $200, or be charged $9,000 for
a few stiches in a finger. (these are real life examples and not
exaggerations). Experimental clinics like The Surgery Center of Oklahoma,
which cut out insurance companies, and publishes their prices are 5-10X cheaper
than what other hospitals charge (and about equivalent to prices charged in
Japan and India). If medical costs were this cheap, many people wouldn't need
insurance to pay for all but the most catastrophic of illnesses. If hospitals
were required to adhere to the same anti-trust rules as any other business, to
publish their prices and charge the same amount to everyone, we would see
about 80% of the cost of healthcare evaporate overnight. It's a sad state of
affairs when for every doctor in the country there are two people working in
the medical insurance industry. I agree with that statement. It is not just
hospitals but the monopolies that have also been established on the practice of
medicine and dentistry. Why do the American Medical Association (AMA), and
American Dental Association (ADA) – both private (government sanctioned and
enforced) guilds or trade organizations have such power and control over who
can practice medicine; over how medicine can be practiced?
>>Because when they didn't anybody could hang out a shingle and claim to be
>>doctor and there were quacks everywhere pushing patent medicine and bleeding
>>people (literally). Sure… but how does that justify giving a guild – e.g.
>>the AMA – a monopoly over the issue of licenses to practice medicine? Why
>>not a state body for example. Why a monopoly private trade association?
?? Medical licenses in the U.S. are issued by states.
Technically true perhaps, but both the AAMC and ACGME (the agencies I believe
you refer to) act in the private interest of the AMA, and are only
quasi-governmental in that they seem to have enough influence to have
government regulations bent to their will. The members of these boards are
usually in the medical field, and also AMA members.
MDs in the US make on average twice as much money as MDs in other OECD
countries – such as Germany -- for example.
In Germany, as I understand it, insurance companies bid to insure classes of
workers and they then negotiate to control doctors fees. Most of the OECD
countries directly regulate or pay health care fees. Of all the OECD countries
the U.S. has the most free-market system, and the most expensive health care.
It shows the fallacy of the libertarian dream. When everyone pursues
self-interest the winners will be those who form coalitions whose objective is
to eliminate other coalitions. The US system likes to bill itself as being
free market, but it is in fact rather more of a crony capitalist system run by
and for the powerful vested interests. Our health care system is a perfect
example of just how inefficient and expensive crony capitalism really is.
I think it falls between two stools by trying to be regulated capitalism. I
would have much preferred expanding Medicare to everyone, i.e. a single-payer
system like France, than Obamacare. But Obama had to have some powerful (i.e.
moneyed) ally and he settled on the health insurance industry. Agreed a
single payer system would have been much preferable and much cheaper for the
consumer in the end. But as you point out powerful vested interests perverted
the process and got the legislation they desired, a health care system that
seems designed to lock in a fat revenue stream for these powerful private
insurance interests.
Just because it is called free market doesn’t mean it actually bears any
actual resemblance to an actual free market. The US economy is an oligopoly
where access to the market is highly controlled and regulated – invariably to
protect, favor and benefit the vested interests. The Walton heirs net worth is
an example of the social fabric trickle down “free market” policies have
actually resulted in. Since 1983, their net worth has increased a staggering
6,700 percent; in 2013, the Walton family's net worth was $144.7 billion.
Your example though doesn't match your rhetoric. How was Walton's money not
obtained by using "the market"? Describing what someone says as “rhetoric”
is itself a form of rhetoric. The market you cite is not in any way describable
as a *free market*. There are huge barriers to entry and monopoly power is
brought to bear. The entire edifice of the global trade system and the global
race to the bottom in terms of finding the lowest wage, least regulated labor
markets to drive down costs of the global multinationals that are able to
harness and benefit from a globally integrated trading systems (versus the
smaller players that do not have the reach and depth to be able to act in the
same manner as the massive monopoly powers – such as Walmart (or Costco, which
last year had revenues of 90 billion dollars for example). When an organization
has that much buying power it can dictate terms and to a large extent prices as
well to much smaller suppliers, and there are many examples of businesses that
have been squeezed to death by these monopolistic mega-buyers, such as Walmart,
Costco and the world’s few other oligopolistic distributers.
>>But they are not monopolies in the legal sense. All you are illustrating is
>>that money is a form of power and it can be used to get more money and more
>>power. A free-market is unstable against concentration of wealth. That's
>>why there are laws against monopolies and anti-competitive trade practices
>>like price-fixing and selling below cost.
How is Comcast -- to take one example *not* functionally a monopoly? It is a
monopoly where I live; I have no other cable provider I can choose from
(DirectTV is not cable). For me and for millions of people in similar captive
markets Comcast is a monopoly. Comcast also controls the lion share of all
media content produced and distributed in the US. In sector after sector of our
economy politically well connected vested interests control by far the largest
portion of total market share.A free market needs to be protected from
concentration of power in order to remain free; otherwise it will soon enough
become captivated by colluding interests.
But it is not just retail, in sector after sector we see a landscape of a
very few number of huge politically favored and connected national champions,
big huge multinationals dominate sector after sector. When one examines a lot
of legislation, and sees that what is becoming enacted into law is often
almost verbatim that which has been supplied to pliant corrupt politicians by
the various trade associations and lobbying groups, it is hard not to become
cynical about our alleged “free market”. Often legislation seems more designed
to impose onerous barriers on smaller players in a given space that tip the
balance in favor of the politically connected large oligopolies. The “free
market” has become thoroughly corrupted by money power enacting legislation and
regulations that favor the continued concentration of money power in fewer and
fewer hands. How is this a free market? Unless by free you mean that the
oligopolists are free to do whatever they please.
>>Yes the system can be corrupted and has been in many cases. But that doesn't
>>show that the libertarian ideal of a completely unregulated market is either
>>possible or desirable. Markets can only exist within the context of a
>>society that defines ownership and contracts. For example "inalienable
>>rights" is not just a catch phrase, it means there are some rights you can't
>>loose even by voluntarily contracting to do so.
I do not subscribe to America's peculiar offshoot brand of libertarianism,
exemplified by the so called Tea Party. Mostly I find these Ayn Rand addled
individuals to be substantially ungrounded in any sense of reality, with world
views driven instead y ideological purity tests. Personally I am of the
opinion that there is no such thing as a truly free market in any case; it is
an unattainable ideal. All markets need some regulation; all markets restrict
access in some manner or other; all markets are characterized by some degree of
collusion and insider networks operating within them. The very notion of a free
market is a pipe dream -- IMO. Having said this I am for regulations that help
markets from becoming overly concentrated into just a few hands; I believe that
I have better choices and service in markets that provide me with a wide array
of suppliers to select from. In fact I am 100% certain that my cable service
and speeds would be better if my market was served by more than a single cable
supplier, to take an example that irks me every month when I pay their
bill.-Chris
Brent
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