“Point of interest? Offering to shoot us might not work so well as an incentive as you might imagine.” – Firefly
But that’s not as bad as the unemployed jester: he’s nobody’s fool.
As I looked at the headlines today, two of them jumped out at me. The first was this (capitalization same as the original):
82% WANT MONTHLY STIMULUS CHECKS . . . . (LINK to actual study)
As usual, there are some misleading bits behind the headline. If you clicked through the fluff pieces (several times) to the actual study on the stimulus checks that I linked to, it really says that 82% want stimulus checks as long as the government is mandating a shutdown. That’s a lot more reasonable, since it’s not asking for that money, you know, forever. Except in Michigan, where I believe governor will keep the economy in shutdown mode until scientists develop immortality.
So, the headline was misleading, and people didn’t want the money forever. That made me happy. Until I read the real story embedded in the study and saw this statistic:
74% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats agree that we should move to a universal health care system.
Stick a fork in it, folks, like a doughnut around Stacey Abrams, it’s done. If the numbers in that study are correct, regardless of how you or I might feel about it, nationalized health care in some form is now probably just a matter of details and whose name goes on the package.
At least the Washington Post can explain that unusual eclipse on the East Coast now.
I could spend a lot of time talking about how and why we got here, including discussion of how the system we have is just like Michael Moore: it incorporates the worst aspects of capitalism and the worst aspects of socialism. But I won’t. This battle, I think, is effectively lost. A shrewd candidate for president will make this a centerpiece of his campaign, and the only difference will be if the final version is called TrumpTreatment© or BidenBenefits®.
Obamacare has served the only purpose it was designed for: it is the capstone of a series of Federal mandates since the 1980s that have served to make the costs of healthcare in this country so incredibly high that literally anything is better than the status quo. Healthcare in the United States doesn’t in any way mimic a free market, except in plastic surgery and laser eye surgery. Those costs have gone down because insurance generally doesn’t pay for them and doctors have to actually compete. I guess the other nice thing about being a plastic surgeon is that they get to see new faces every week.
Healthcare should remind everyone of the mantra of the Left: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” This crisis has been made through successive actions of the Left to make hospitals have to charge responsible people for every drug addled meth and crack head and pregnant illegal alien that drools or waddles their way into the emergency room. But there’s enough blame for everyone, since the corporatist wing of the Republican party has taken action to ensure that insulin makers can charge Americans six times the cost for a life giving drug (insulin) in the United States as compared to our neighbors to the North.
If the first headline wasn’t bad enough, the second headline was:
68% Of Unemployed ‘Eligible For Payments Greater Than Lost Earnings’ . . . . (LINK to study, and not three layers of journo-fluff)
This is one with which the extended Wilder family has some experience. Alia S. Wilder was recently working from her home composing Mongolian throat-singing mix tapes for the black market. Normally she does this in an office, but due to BatFlu, she was sent to work from home. Her boss called and told her they were temporarily shutting down the business.
The cat then told me, “Snitches get stitches.” I had no idea he was closely watching health care policy.
Since the market they serve of throat-singing aficionados was entirely shut down by Corona-chan, it was a logical business move to make. Alia S. Wilder was also one of the first people to get called back. Good? Well, yes. But she had to take an income cut to do so, since her job pays less than unemployment insurance plus the $600 a week that Uncle Sugar was kicking in.
I was proud of her that her complaint level was exactly zero: she was roaring and ready to get back to work. Those mix tapes won’t make themselves, after all. But how many people would just love to stay home and collect the WuFlu bucks? Get paid for doing nothing? It must be that “new normal” that people keep talking about.
I actually understand the reason people would like free money, and would prefer to stay home and eat nachos and smoke weed on Gram-gram’s couch rather than deliver pizzas. However, the $600 a week bump sets up bad incentives: I read one story of a guy who needed pizza delivery dudes, and no one would take the job because unemployment paid so much more. I can see that, given the horrible hiccup in the economy, why the government would want to print lots and lots of money encourage consumption, but the increased payments have essentially raised the minimum wage to somewhere between $20-$25 just to break even with current unemployment payments. How much more would you have to pay people to actually work?
For markets to work, there needs to be some sort of connection between supply and demand. If you pay people $1000 a week, how many will think that working for $1200 a week is a good idea? Not many. And I’m willing to bet that if the economy is as bad as I think it is, the Federal government will continue the payments for longer than the current end date in July. During the Great Recession, the Federal government continued unemployment insurance for 100 weeks. Two years.
What kind of distortion will that have on the labor market?
Yes, this happened on a CNN special last week.
In thinking about this story, I was reminded of an old story that I heard about the Soviet Union:
There was a Soviet nail factory. In the factory, the communist leaders from Moscow called and told the manager, “Make sure you increase production of nails! You must increase the tonnage for Comrade Stalin!”
The manager hung up the phone. “Yuri,” he called for the production foreman, “make a production schedule change. Make very, very large nails this month.”
Accordingly, the factory had a record production month in tons of nails produced. The communist leaders printed a picture of the factory manager receiving an award. But soon enough, the leaders in Moscow realized that not a lot of people needed nails that weighed two pounds each. The communist leader called the manager back. “The tonnage was good. But this month, make more nails for Comrade Stalin.”
The manager hung up the phone. “Yuri,” he called for the production foreman, “make a production schedule change. Make many very, very, small nails this month.”
Not my translation. The KGB spy school told me to pretend I don’t speak fluent Russian.
I wasn’t able to verify the basics of this story, but I did find the accompanying cartoon which at least hints that the Soviets themselves were aware that something was broken in their system. And I did find a story about a Soviet plant that made a machine to help make tires. They developed new technology that allowed the machine to make tires much faster, but refused to make it.
Why?
Then they would make fewer machines. In a market-based economy the company would celebrate their new, better machine and use it as a selling point to beat their competition. But in this case, the incentives were to make more machines rather than make better machines.
This is the primary failure mechanism of socialist systems. They have bad incentives. I read once that in Great Britain that people ring up the ambulance to take them to the doctor. Why not? It’s “free,” right?
Once a “free” system takes hold, however, it will never leave until the economy collapses under all the “free” money and “free” services. Why? People become dependent on free things. If you want to make someone dependent on you? Give them things. Proof?
Ever hear your parents say, “My house, my rules?” Giving is a form of control.
I think the last person I saw driving this windowless van was named Bernie.
Freedom comes from saying “no” to free things, but I have the sense that people are going to be saying yes to free stuff.
Always think back to what Admiral Ackbar says at a time like this:
I happen to enjoy modern Mongolian throat singing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8dCGIm6yc
The Hu are awesome!
Agreed!
Okay. That is awesome. I listened to several of their other songs. Amazing. Plus? The Boy was already a fan.
Thank you.
Surprisingly little coverage of the medical costs to individuals on COVID-19. Layoffs cut off health insurance to millions and millions more never had that to begin with. It’s a disaster that will probably take the stock market to all time highs.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-health-care-costs-medical-treatment/
“a disaster that will probably take the stock market to all time highs.”
The failure of the West in one phrase.
This is the blackest of black pills that many are so loathe to take: we can’t pull out of this. It doesn’t really matter if Trump wins or loses in November, the end result will be the same, it will just take a little longer. Someone like Stacy Abrams or AOC is going to be President before the 2020s end, assuming we are still a semi-functional nation by that point. Even if Trump replaces Ginsburg, they are going to pack the court with extra justices and swamp the “conservatives”. People in Texas still think they are in a Republican stronghold but I wouldn’t be surprised if Texas goes blue this year or 2024 at the latest, along with Florida, Arizona and Georgia. Socialized medicine is just the first step, a permanent UBI is next at the same time we see massive gun control and restrictions on free expression.
There is only one way we come out on the other side of this and it won’t be at the ballot box.
Politics is downstream from culture. Change the culture, change the country.
And you change the culture by changing the people. People who have shown no interest in sustaining the culture of the nation they move into and instead seem bent on replicating the culture of the nations they fled from are incapable of maintaining what was built in America and Europe.
Can we embrace the healing power of “and” on this one? Because I agree with you as well.
I’d counter with reality is a Black Pill only if you give in to despair. And I know you haven’t, and I haven’t, and only that one reader of this blog from New York has.
“Nothing is over until we say it’s over!”
I don’t find being black-pilled causes despair, it is really quite freeing to no longer think we can pull this thing up and avoid a crash. Now it is about making sure that me and mine, and as many of my people as possible, are positioned for the inevitable crash.
Yes, it is. It moves me from wanting to change the situation, to wanting to deal with the situation.
Now it is about making sure that me and mine, and as many of my people as possible, are positioned for the inevitable crash.
Exactly right Brother which is why I stress so much to be building Communities now so when the inevitable happens we are best prepared to face it…All those bad things that John and you has mentioned over the years can be best mitigated by having a Community of the like minded that have prepared for those bad things…
Community is SO important. It binds us and gives us common purpose.
My GP thinks that single-payer health care would be good. He would save a lot of money without the staff time spent trying to figure out how to work with the health-insurance companies.
I’m scheduled to get a routine hernia-repair outpatient surgery. The hospital charge is about $1025, which seems like a reasonable figure for an hour of labor by an experienced professional surgeon and support team. It’s not a Big Deal Expense to me, but I can see how it could be a problem for anyone in the bottom 50%, and a good thing to have insurance to cover. But, actually, that’s just the residue after my insurance pays 85%! So, I guess the “actual cost” is more like $7000. So, I think I’m paying for my own care, and my insurance company is paying for the free ER care that is the “right” of anyone who can get through the door.
It’ll interesting to see, 5-10 years from now, if COVID-19 ends up saving health-care money in the long run, but terminating expensive chronic conditions. (Will it persuade people to _avoid_ acquiring expensive chronic conditions? Nahhh.)
Ask your GP why he thinks that more of what he is dealing with will be easier. And to chat with his (older) compatriots from Great Britain.
Nope. You won’t change human nature. People will drink, smoke, and stare at the Sun. And sometimes all three, if my hot tub is working.
Expensive conditions will be with us . . . until the state defines behavior.
What would your GP do if you offered an ounce of gold to him personally rather than insurance payment in 90 days after a fight and $1025 out of your pocket? If you had been saving to past 10 years of premiums., you would be much ahead by this way.
Do you have the source for the Soviet tire machine producer? I’d like to read it. It’s always good having concrete examples when talking with socialist nitwits.
On the subject of Mongolian Throat Singing, I offer this ending credits audio clip from one of the final eps of Devs, an 8 part FX science fiction series on Hulu that I highly recommend. This is their take on cave artists from France 30,000 years ago inventing not only cave art but also music. You’ll just have to see for yourself how this fits into the plot, too complicated to explain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5hALx9lLLw
Devs showrunner Alex Garland is a straight-up genius. Everybody should see his techno-noir Frankenstein movie Ex Machina. Coming soon to a McD’s near you.
https://www.netflix.com/title/80023689
Yeah, I saw Ex Machina, while blogging. Not bad at all. Guess we’ll have to give Devs a shot . . .
It is easy to see how capitalism and somewhat free markets help with production of food, electronics, and pez dispensers. I have yet to find a free market system that has delivered cost efficient health outcomes on a large scale. Purely elective procedures like face lifts? Sure, it works. Apply that logic to cancer and Type I diabetes? You just throw a percent of the population under the bus in a way that makes most humans uncomfortable with the approach. No pure ideological system will deliver in health care. It will need to be a blended system to produce cost effective and good outcomes. Too many ideological purists weigh in thinking pure socialism or capitalism will be the cure all.
Ivermectin is a common treatment for scabies and intestinal parasites. A course of treatment costs twelve cents in other countries. It costs $31 in the United States.
Or you can buy the deworming paste used for $5 million race horses and do a little math. Then, it costs sixty-four cents a dose.
That’s why “free trade” across national borders isn’t.
Joe, always nice to see you come by!!!
Is there a recreational use? Or can you use it to rid congress of parasites?
Asking for a friend.
It has also cured a lung cancer
This was the first place I’d heard of it . . .