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Posted

" in favor of single-payer healthcare because it's delivered cheaper?"  With single-payer healthcare, there is absolutely no incentive on the consumer to shop for prices or control costs. It is very inefficient.

See that sounds really good when you say it but it turns out that it's empirically wrong for a host of reasons. So I'll stick with what's been proven to work instead of going with what's supposed to work but doesn't.

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Posted

And also included in this message. What most Americans think of as Libertarian would be located on the classical liberal line between liberal and conservative. You and DooDiligence sound like you are near that line but in the grey.  I'd place myself in the green anarchist-capitalist section.

LOL, basically me and Doo are just boring nice guys

 

I'm feeling a lot of love here & will do my best to remain worthy!

 

Now if I could just get as intelligent as you guys & actually contribute a valuable idea here instead of just color comentary (maybe then I could stop being boring...)

Posted

And also included in this message. What most Americans think of as Libertarian would be located on the classical liberal line between liberal and conservative. You and DooDiligence sound like you are near that line but in the grey.  I'd place myself in the green anarchist-capitalist section.

LOL, basically me and Doo are just boring nice guys

 

I didn't accuse you of being nice or boring.  I prefer "misguided".

 

Guilty as charged...

Posted

LOL, basically me and Doo are just boring nice guys

 

Sounds like you are ready to move to Canada if you are not already here.

LOL Already there :)

Posted

I'm feeling a lot of love here & will do my best to remain worthy!

 

Now if I could just get as intelligent as you guys & actually contribute a valuable idea here instead of just color comentary (maybe then I could stop being boring...)

I'd appreciate that. Esp since I'm running a bit low on ideas as of late aster this rally. Try to make it something brilliant!

Posted

" in favor of single-payer healthcare because it's delivered cheaper?"  With single-payer healthcare, there is absolutely no incentive on the consumer to shop for prices or control costs. It is very inefficient.

See that sounds really good when you say it but it turns out that it's empirically wrong for a host of reasons. So I'll stick with what's been proven to work instead of going with what's supposed to work but doesn't.

 

Yeah, you're right; free markets don't work.  What was I thinking.  There has not been a free market in healthcare for about 100 years now.  But it worked quite well when it existed.  Can you imagine how stupid it would be to have a single-payer system in virtually any other product or service? How about a single-payer system for buying cars, or stocks? But yet people think it oughta work  just fine in healthcare.  Go figure.

Posted

It seems like my mental overdrive mode yesterday has created something like the December version of "Which Presidential Candidate will you..."!

 

DooDiligence, please do not let it get under your skin. The people around here are actually very nice in general.

 

Liberty is right - it's not just "two airplanes".

 

I certainly concur with valcont, cardboard and Jurgis also.

 

I have seen things from inside with regard to public/military spending in the whole 2014 and most of 2015 under an assignment I was on in that period. The Arctic Patrol Ships ordered by the Canadian Navy and beeing built right now in Canada are actually designed here in Odense, Denmark. Let me just say I was baffled about how things were done, without going too much into specifics. -To provide some further modest comfort to my fellow Canadian board members footing the bill on this I will just add that I was paid dearly! [-to work hard, very hard].

 

rb, with regard to the rally lately, I'm not amused - like you. Actually, I'm getting poorer by it. In tax deferred accounts here in Denmark, you have to pay a 15.3 percent tax based on marked to market valuations on both realised and unrealiseds gains. To give you the opportunity to get even with me about the above I'll mention that the tax is called a PAL-tax [PAL beeing the abbreviation for the Danish words for "Pension Return Law"].There is carry forward on the calculation basis for the tax. So I want the stocks I buy in such account to just "stay there" with regard to price, and to fall with dividends received - and to pop the day before I want to sell. By the way, it is the only Danish tax, for which you don't get a specification from the Danish IRS. Your broker/bank does the calculation, and pulls the tax from the account and delivers it to the Danish IRS in the middle of each January. If the cash is not there, you're "margin called" for the tax.

Posted

Yeah, you're right; free markets don't work.  What was I thinking.  There has not been a free market in healthcare for about 100 years now.  But it worked quite well when it existed.  Can you imagine how stupid it would be to have a single-payer system in virtually any other product or service? How about a single-payer system for buying cars, or stocks? But yet people think it oughta work  just fine in healthcare.  Go figure.

 

I love this response.  Just unabashedly shout it from the rooftops: "Your data is irrelevant!  The world is black or white.  My ideology is far too important to be refuted by something as banal as reality!"

Posted

It seems like my mental overdrive mode yesterday has created something like the December version of "Which Presidential Candidate will you..."!

 

DooDiligence, please do not let it get under your skin. The people around here are actually very nice in general.

 

Liberty is right - it's not just "two airplanes".

 

I certainly concur with valcont, cardboard and Jurgis also.

 

I have seen things from inside with regard to public/military spending in the whole 2014 and most of 2015 under an assignment I was on in that period. The Arctic Patrol Ships ordered by the Canadian Navy and beeing built right now in Canada are actually designed here in Odense, Denmark. Let me just say I was baffled about how things were done, without going too much into specifics. -To provide some further modest comfort to my fellow Canadian board members footing the bill on this I will just add that I was paid dearly! [-to work hard, very hard].

 

rb, with regard to the rally lately, I'm not amused - like you. Actually, I'm getting poorer by it. In tax deferred accounts here in Denmark, you have to pay a 15.3 percent tax based on marked to market valuations on both realised and unrealiseds gains. To give you the opportunity to get even with me about the above I'll mention that the tax is called a PAL-tax [PAL beeing the abbreviation for the Danish words for "Pension Return Law"].There is carry forward on the calculation basis for the tax. So I want the stocks I buy in such account to just "stay there" with regard to price, and to fall with dividends received - and to pop the day before I want to sell. By the way, it is the only Danish tax, for which you don't get a specification from the Danish IRS. Your broker/bank does the calculation, and pulls the tax from the account and delivers it to the Danish IRS in the middle of each January. If the cash is not there, you're "margin called" for the tax.

There's always been bloat in defense contracts going back to Eisenhower and his warnings about the military-industrial complex and probably way before that as well. I'd love for that problem to be fixed but aside from empty rhetoric over the years I have yet to see anyone come up with concrete and practical plans to do something about that.

 

Regarding you tax payable I feel your pain. They're not really tax deferred accounts if you have to pay mark to market tax are they? Though in fairness if you have to pay 15.3% I guess that's just a partial tax. I have a different but similar problem. Our accounts are truly deferred tax. But over the past few years I've done quite well and my clients' tax deferred accounts have swelled a lot and are way beyond plan. They're now facing large tax bills on withdrawals. I'll have to figure out something about that.

 

But hey those are first world problems. My view is that it's always better to make a lot of money and have to pay more tax as opposed to having to pay little tax because you didn't make money.

Posted

Yeah, you're right; free markets don't work.  What was I thinking.  There has not been a free market in healthcare for about 100 years now.  But it worked quite well when it existed.  Can you imagine how stupid it would be to have a single-payer system in virtually any other product or service? How about a single-payer system for buying cars, or stocks? But yet people think it oughta work  just fine in healthcare.  Go figure.

 

I love this response.  Just unabashedly shout it from the rooftops: "Your data is irrelevant!  The world is black or white.  My ideology is far too important to be refuted by something as banal as reality!"

 

No? He just told you you have no data. He's the kid from The Emperor's New Clothes. That kid's brilliant btw :)

Posted

 

(I'm socially liberal & fiscally conservative & am trying to reconcile the two...)

 

 

I think there are a lot of us. We are lacking a party to represent us.

 

Libertarian.

 

 

Then I am not adequately describing myself with the terms socially liberal & fiscally conservative.

 

Or perhaps you just need to understand libertarianism better . . .

 

I do much better with equations. If someone could translate all this into a mathematical format I could understand it.

Posted

 

DooDiligence, please do not let it get under your skin. The people around here are actually very nice in general.

 

 

It's all good (I sometimes react inappropriately & then wiser individuals nudge me towards the middle path...)

 

I agree with your opinion of COBF participants & hope to improve myself by association.

Posted

Yeah, you're right; free markets don't work.  What was I thinking.  There has not been a free market in healthcare for about 100 years now.  But it worked quite well when it existed.  Can you imagine how stupid it would be to have a single-payer system in virtually any other product or service? How about a single-payer system for buying cars, or stocks? But yet people think it oughta work  just fine in healthcare.  Go figure.

 

I love this response.  Just unabashedly shout it from the rooftops: "Your data is irrelevant!  The world is black or white.  My ideology is far too important to be refuted by something as banal as reality!"

 

No? He just told you you have no data. He's the kid from The Emperor's New Clothes. That kid's brilliant btw :)

 

No, he didn't.  For future reference, here's what a response would look like if he were telling me I have no data:

 

"You have no data."

 

His response was essentially, "If you think free markets don't work for healthcare, you therefore believe that free markets don't work anywhere.  How on earth can you believe that free markets don't work anywhere?  It's ridiculous to believe governments should be in charge of buying cars for anyone."

 

To anyone thoughtful, that argument is akin to, "If you think that potatoes are tasty, then you must believe that anything that comes out of the ground is tasty!  I can't believe you're suggesting we eat rocks.  Can you imagine how hard a time we'd have swimming, if we'd had nothing but rocks to eat for a week or two?"

Posted

I really like the humor here - to me, it is like Danish humor! - Please remember the humor also when everything is tanking! [, which it eventually will - at some time in the future - perhaps already on monday.]

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