h a l f b a k e r yI CAN HAZ CROISSANTZ?
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Replace money printing for stock markets and credit
liquidity
markets with money printed for each citizen in the world.
According to Wikipedia, my government (the United
Kingdom)
spends £240 billion on welfare, £102 billion on education
and
£145 billion on health. The welfare spend is
enough to give
everyone £4675 a year.
That's enough to pay for rent in the city outskirts.
My local government spends £1,585,193,200 providing local
services.
I propose scrapping the money spent on welfare and gifting
that to individuals per year based on GDP. When the country
does well financially, everyone earns more.
Increase the amount of money that can be earned before
being taxed to whatever this amount of money is. So
everyone
who earns more gets taxed at 50%.
Everyone should have health insurance.
[link]
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If only world leaders would just embrace these easy
solutions, the world would be such a better place |
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// Everyone should have health insurance // |
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Who pays for that, then ? Where does the funding come from ? |
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Governments have no money, other than that they steal from their citizens, or borrow - which has, eventually, to be repaid. They are also grossly inefficient. |
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I'm not sure what to do about healthcare. |
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The government owning hospitals and employing health
experts directly seems to provide great care - world class care.
But it's very inefficient. |
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I wonder if privatised health care and insurance based
healthcare would work better and be cheaper? |
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So does everyone else. Socialised healthcare is a disaster. |
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When healthcare is funded by the state, the assumption is that it has infinitely deep pockets. In reality, healthcare is a black hole for financial resource. No organization can ever provide enough money to fund healthcare to the satisfaction of every user. There has to be rationing. This is a brutal and unpleasant fact. |
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States with free universal healthcare will eventually bankrupt themselves, and the objective of good health for the entire population will never be achieved since the Law of Diminishing Returns operates inexorably. |
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it certainly is not. Dollar for dollar Western countries with socialized healthcare have massively better outcomes than the US. |
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This is not a new idea, it's called citizens income, or universal basic income. |
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It is obviously much more logical and sane than means-tested handouts, which is why it has never and probably will never be implemented. |
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The most sensible proposals recommend funding such a universal distribution of cash through some kind of tax or levy on commons, whether that is on land values (as suggested by Henry George over a century ago), or on natural resource extraction license sales, or by central bank money printing aka inflation & growth in the economy. |
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Again these ideas are very equitable and rational, which is why they are inevitably considered fringe, marginal and unlikely ever to be implemented. |
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I support UBI, but you can't take from health and education to fund it. Not if you want a healthy economy and populace. As for the idea, how to put this kindly.... [chron] you should really read a few economics and history textbooks to get an understanding of how humanity has proposed, implemented and worked with the various issues you're trying to address. |
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// massively better outcomes than the US. // |
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Is that the only criterion ? To fund that healthcare, the state must take a higher and higher proportion of income from its workers. This will inevitably lead to disaster. |
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Humans are not altruistic on a macro scale. You should model any proposed system around the notion that all human beings are greedy, venal, selfish and dishonest (on a macro scale) and will do whatever they can to get the most output for the least input. This behaviour is strongly supported by historical and observational evidence. |
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That's not anything like inevitable. It's not even likely! Sure if you want life extending implants, military implants, implanted tools and equipment, a real-time communication hub in every person and so forth but most (dare I say all) countries are content to keep people healthy up until they reach a point of diminishing returns and "let" them die with "dignity". |
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The "country" might be, but medics aren't, and employ emotive imagery ("you must save this sick baby/teenager/old person") and arguments to extract constantly increasing funding for healthcare. |
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"Human history is the story of scarce resources that have competing uses". As you point out, economics textbooks explain this very clearly. Resources are finite, they must be apportioned accordingly, and there will always be winners and losers. Since governments are inefficient and subject to popular pressure, they apportion resources according to that pressure, not rational analysis. |
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//it certainly is not. Dollar for dollar Western countries with
socialized healthcare have massively better outcomes than
the US// |
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It depends what metrics you apply. |
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the reality is a bit different. The middle class, especially
upper middle class, has a vastly different level of service
than anywhere in the world (the upper classes have a
different level of service everywhere, as is evidenced by
the rapid corona tests accessible to celebrities) |
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The US average is brought down by the uninsured and
underinsured. What that masks is that if and when US
finally succumbs to anything resembling what Western
Europe has, the average will go up but the level of
service the middle and upper middle class is accustomed
to will go down. And thus they continue to fight it. |
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Inequality can never be permanently removed from an economic system. It can be reduced, but that produces stresses and strains. Allow those to get too big, or persist for too long (low-cycle and high-cycle fatigue) and there will be a catastrophic* correction. |
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*In the mathematical sense. See "points of inflexion", catastrophe curves, and discontinuous functions. |
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The idea is nothing new, also, what has it to do with the
'world
economy'? |
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// the NHS has mission creep by spending more and more to save fewer and fewer. // |
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Well spotted. In the end, that's what will destroy it. |
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If you will spend 1 resource unit to save 1 life, will you spend 2 ? If yes, then why not 20 ? 100 ? 1000 ? |
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Where do you call a halt to the value of one life ? The medics never will; in the end, entropy will call time. The system will collapse, and lots of people will die. |
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Social programmes like pensions and healthcare were created generations ago, but then set in legislative stone. Now, any attempt to change them to cope with changed (very much changed) conditions is political suicude because nobody wants to take a hit, especially older users in poorer health who see their prospects diminished. They have votes, and importantly, money and influence too. |
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Too late, it's been realized that the "Pensions time bomb" is a thermonuclear device. |
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Tick, tock, tick, tock ... |
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//the state must take a higher and higher proportion of income
from its workers// |
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Ah yes - the alternative, where medical insurers take a higher
and higher proportion, is clearly much better ... right? |
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Actually, both arrangements are more rational than they first
appear; in a society where most people don't really need more
stuff, why wouldn't a growing part of the economy be dedicated
to their health? What else should they spend on? (I mean, yes,
infrastructure and education, obviously, but that's a separate
problem). |
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//NHS has mission creep// Agreed. |
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//To fund that healthcare, the state must take a higher and higher proportion of income from its
workers.// |
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// the NHS has mission creep by spending more and more to save fewer and fewer. // |
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//There has to be rationing.// |
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This is always going to be the case - except for the ultra-rich who can personally fund all
imaginable treatments directly. |
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In brief, the way the NHS does it is to work from its budget to derive how much can be spent to
save one quality-adjusted life-year, and hence what treatments they can fund. |
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The way that private health insurance does this is ... essentially the same, except with additional
layers of bureaucracy and private organisations milking off as much of the money as they can get
away with. |
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// essentially the same /// |
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With one huge difference - the amount of funding allocated isn't so much of an ice-axe to help political parties claw their way to the moral high ground. |
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Under a private or even semi-private system, the fact that healthcare isn't a "something for nothing" service is constantly forced into the minds of users. |
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It's unfair, unjust, discriminatory, and a huge source of stress and anxiety. Completely natural, unavoidable, and part of life. The slowest antelope gets eaten. |
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... except in so far as it is, in fact, avoided, in most
advanced societies. |
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No, it's not. There's a pretence that it is, an "Emperor's New Clothes" shared delusion, but it's there nonetheless. It's part of the disconnect between what humans want to believe they are, and what they actually are. |
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The only free cheese is in mousetraps. |
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//There's a pretence that it is// |
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So ... people are *actually* hugely stressed and anxious
about this, but foolishly think they're not? That's some
impressive mental gymnastics - do you work out? |
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In the U.S., service users worry about paying health insurance, and extent of coverage. In the U.K. they worry about postcode prescribing, availability of novel pharmaceuticals, waiting lists. That's more indirect, but arises from the same source. |
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//The only free cheese is in mousetraps// |
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Not true, mum gave me some cheese only last month, didn't
ask to be paid at all, doubtless driven to do this
by the (somewhat addled, as it's doubtful at this point I'll
have any offspring) imperative to insure the welfare of her
offspring & promote her own genes into the future. |
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That proves the point - it wasn't "free". Her genes were indeed making an investment in their own continuity. |
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You're just an asset. As Richard Dawkins points out, genes are very selfish; they have to be. Only the selfish survive. |
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Yes but in every possible way it was indeed free to me not
only at point of delivery but indefinitely into the future as
well. |
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She'd already bought it, was moving in with her sister for
the lockdown & it was a bit pongy already (me I like that)
so if I didn't want it she'd have thrown it out, so didn't even
have a delayed potential future cost to my
'inheritance' were I expecting to get one. |
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The einstein theory of cheese cost relativity : It's freeness,
lack thereof or position on the spectrum
between
completely free & infinitely costly is relative to where you
stand in the transaction & observe it from. |
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Expressed most simply for the
layman as 'I'm her relative
so it was free'. |
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//Her genes were indeed making an investment in their own
continuity.// |
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By the same reasoning, then, a collective entity (such as a nation
state) can make an investment in *its* own continuity. |
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That's exactly what Hitler said. |
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Hitler said: "What is life? Life is the Nation. The individual must die anyway. Beyond the life of the individual is the Nation." |
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(Source: Wikiquote, "The World at War": Stalingrad) |
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Of course, part of that "investment" management is writing down/off and disposing of assets that no longer provide a return. |
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We note your enthusiastic espousal of fascistic totalitarian values with interest (and approbation); we also invest in our continuity, as you may have noticed. |
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My first bit of advice would be to stop eating like
Americans, and knock off the bloody cigarettes.
That'll save you a fortune in healthcare costs. |
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My next bit of advice would be to make like every
health care machine that goes bing should be
produced on the cheap using some efficient
manufacturing methods. Take a look at a Raspberry
pi, harden it a bit, add a touch screen, and there's
your ventilator controller. Not every single machine
needs to be able to deal with a level 5 ER emergency
in terms of support. Build a bunch on the cheap, and
have fewer that have more capability for the tougher
cases. |
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We build hospital beds like every single bed
needs push-button maid service, which seems to be
a silly fallacy. Sometimes all that is needed is a cot,
a blanket and pillow, and a foam mattress. |
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//BZZZZZT Godwin's Law ! // |
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May I gently remind you of what Godwin's Law says? It
says
that the first person to invoke the Hitler comparison
thereby
*loses* the argument. |
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{slips out of the room to the soundtrack of the "Suicide
Squad" scene from "Life of Brian"} |
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//It says that the first person to invoke the Hitler
comparison
thereby *loses* the argument// |
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The real, the only true, original & unrevised Godwin's law :
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a
comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1" |
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I hereby accuse [pert] of Godwin's law revisionism, you are
a
revisionist & I claim my $1. |
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<Encloses $1 in used tram tickets in plain brown envelope, conceals same behind hot water pipes in gentlemen's toilets, Waterloo station/> |
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// Sometimes all that is needed is a cot, a blanket and pillow, and a foam mattress. // |
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... or as that's known in most of Africa, "Intensive Care" .... |
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The problem of over-engineered, over-certified, hugely expensive Machines That Go Ping can be traced back to a single, pernicious fault in system design: Lawyers. |
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