Name: Anonymous 2007-03-25 18:57 ID:L5nEO0UT
So many liberals talk about freedom. They claim that conservatives, neocons especially, want to take away freedoms. They call them fascists, totalitarians (the latter of which is not true, by the way), whatever. But liberals want to take away freedom, too. They just want to take away a different freedom; that is, economic freedom.
Conservatives want stricter social, moral standards, but support free market capitalism, or at least a less regulated market. Liberals, on the other hand, are socially progressive, but, because they know nothing about economics, believe the only way to achieve economic fairness is through lots of regulation over the market. The radicals are socialists and communists, which means no economic freedom whatsoever.
Were these liberals to take an economics course, read some Adam Smith, whatever, they would learn that the free market does quite a nice job of achieving economic fairness (loosely defined) without hindering freedoms. Take health care, for example. Most liberals support socialized medicine. I agree that health care is an urgent issue, and that it is our moral obligation to ensure that the 44 million people, roughly 1/6 of the population, living without coverage get it. However, this can be achieved without socialized medicine, a hinderance on the free market. Let's say the government gives all 44 million uninsured Americans some money, and this money is only to be used to purchase coverage. The instant that a government official comes out and says that 44 million people are about to enter the market for insurance at the same time, the insurance companies will go nuts. They'll do anything they can to get as many of those customers as possible, because it means more money for them. And once they've got those customers, competition will keep coverage for low-income families affordable, because no company wants to lose their customers to another company.
So, you can see that all it takes is a little indirect action on the part of the government, not really interfering with the market, to get healthcare insurance for the millions of uninsured Americans. This works much like how the Federal Reserve affects interest rates. A change in the FFTR/FFR by the Fed is a very unnoticeable thing, really. It is just a change in the rate that banks loan to one another on overnight loans, changed indirectly by the buying or selling of securities at the New York Fed. The Fed doesn't actually change the rates, they just affect the money supply through the buying and selling of securities in the free market, resulting in banks raising or lowering their rates. This is just like what could be done with the healthcare crisis; a small, indirect action by the federal government results in a huge change without reducing economic freedom. Now that's efficient.
Conservatives want stricter social, moral standards, but support free market capitalism, or at least a less regulated market. Liberals, on the other hand, are socially progressive, but, because they know nothing about economics, believe the only way to achieve economic fairness is through lots of regulation over the market. The radicals are socialists and communists, which means no economic freedom whatsoever.
Were these liberals to take an economics course, read some Adam Smith, whatever, they would learn that the free market does quite a nice job of achieving economic fairness (loosely defined) without hindering freedoms. Take health care, for example. Most liberals support socialized medicine. I agree that health care is an urgent issue, and that it is our moral obligation to ensure that the 44 million people, roughly 1/6 of the population, living without coverage get it. However, this can be achieved without socialized medicine, a hinderance on the free market. Let's say the government gives all 44 million uninsured Americans some money, and this money is only to be used to purchase coverage. The instant that a government official comes out and says that 44 million people are about to enter the market for insurance at the same time, the insurance companies will go nuts. They'll do anything they can to get as many of those customers as possible, because it means more money for them. And once they've got those customers, competition will keep coverage for low-income families affordable, because no company wants to lose their customers to another company.
So, you can see that all it takes is a little indirect action on the part of the government, not really interfering with the market, to get healthcare insurance for the millions of uninsured Americans. This works much like how the Federal Reserve affects interest rates. A change in the FFTR/FFR by the Fed is a very unnoticeable thing, really. It is just a change in the rate that banks loan to one another on overnight loans, changed indirectly by the buying or selling of securities at the New York Fed. The Fed doesn't actually change the rates, they just affect the money supply through the buying and selling of securities in the free market, resulting in banks raising or lowering their rates. This is just like what could be done with the healthcare crisis; a small, indirect action by the federal government results in a huge change without reducing economic freedom. Now that's efficient.