America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime is accused of repressing minority rights and culture
In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions.
The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime.
In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials.
Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the north-west, the Ahwazi Arabs in the south-west, and the Baluchis in the south-east. Non-Persians make up nearly 40 per cent of Iran's 69 million population, with around 16 million Azeris, seven million Kurds, five million Ahwazis and one million Baluchis. Most Baluchis live over the border in Pakistan.
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Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.
His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime."
Although Washington officially denies involvement in such activity, Teheran has long claimed to detect the hand of both America and Britain in attacks by guerrilla groups on its internal security forces. Last Monday, Iran publicly hanged a man, Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi, for his involvement in a bomb attack that killed 11 Revolutionary Guards in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchistan. An unnamed local official told the semi-official Fars news agency that weapons used in the attack were British and US-made.
Yesterday, Iranian forces also claimed to have killed 17 rebels described as "mercenary elements" in clashes near the Turkish border, which is a stronghold of the Pejak, a Kurdish militant party linked to Turkey's outlawed PKK Kurdistan Workers' Party.
John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington, said: "The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity."
Such a policy is fraught with risk, however. Many of the groups share little common cause with Washington other than their opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose regime they accuse of stepping up repression of minority rights and culture.
The Baluchistan-based Brigade of God group, which last year kidnapped and killed eight Iranian soldiers, is a volatile Sunni organisation that many fear could easily turn against Washington after taking its money.
A row has also broken out in Washington over whether to "unleash" the military wing of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group with a long and bloody history of armed opposition to the Iranian regime.
The group is currently listed by the US state department as terrorist organisation, but Mr Pike said: "A faction in the Defence Department wants to unleash them. They could never overthrow the current Iranian regime but they might cause a lot of damage."
At present, none of the opposition groups are much more than irritants to Teheran, but US analysts believe that they could become emboldened if the regime was attacked by America or Israel. Such a prospect began to look more likely last week, as the UN Security Council deadline passed for Iran to stop its uranium enrichment programme, and a second American aircraft carrier joined the build up of US naval power off Iran's southern coastal waters.
The US has also moved six heavy bombers from a British base on the Pacific island of Diego Garcia to the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which could allow them to carry out strikes on Iran without seeking permission from Downing Street.
While Tony Blair reiterated last week that Britain still wanted a diplomatic solution to the crisis, US Vice-President Dick Cheney yesterday insisted that military force was a real possibility.
"It would be a serious mistake if a nation like Iran were to become a nuclear power," Mr Cheney warned during a visit to Australia. "All options are still on the table."
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in London tomorrow to discuss further punitive measures against Iran. Sanctions barring the transfer of nuclear technology and know-how were imposed in December. Additional penalties might include a travel ban on senior Iranian officials and restrictions on non-nuclear business.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
More indepth Q&A on a rational health care system
Quote:
Now, I can't speak to healthcare coverage, because I am in the P&C business, but I can tell you that what DOES happen a lot of the times is that people will assume they have coverage for things that they do not, and then seek to reclaim those costs. That's more a function of not reading their policy than insurance companies trying to "screw" their customers.
Information asymmetry has a lot to do with this as well. Most average people can't understand the legal jargon that comprises insurance policies, and this benefits the insurer. Tell people that they're covered for any treatment that is medically necessary, and then let them pay for it through their taxes, probably at a rate that costs them less than the equivalent private insurance package.
Quote:
And again, I feel the need to remind you that very rarely will you have lawyers directly under the employ of an insurance company. Insurance companies will generally contract panel councils, and many insurance companies use the same law firms.
Whether it's one lawyer working on 100 cases, or two lawyers each working on 50, it's the same thing. Whether it's an in-house lawyer or a contracted council, it makes no difference (in fact, it might actually cost more).
Quote:
I absolutely agree with you, which is why I suggest that a big factor in removing these costs is to modify the way that torts are handled.
This would not absolve your system of its vast bureaucratic waste.
Quote:
Of course it does! Same population will, generally, require the same amount of manpower to file claims, determine scope of coverage, underwrite, etc. All you'd be doing is bring it under one umbrella. 10 underwriters doing the same amount of work is going to cost the same whether they are working for 2 companies or 10.
You're misguided here, Todd. Economies of scale. Fewer secretaries, fewer facilities, fewer everything, basically.
Quote:
Excuse me? Did you just suggest that I don't have a brain?
No. What I meant to say was "Every health policy expert with a brain knows that they need some sort of socialized, universal health insurance system." I apologize for implying otherwise.
EDIT: Addressed Phred's comments
Phred wrote:
[Talking about the the volume of diagnostic imaging machines.]
Equipment density is a poor barometre of quality. A much more important and appropriate question is 'do you have enough equipment to meet the needs of your population.' If you have an MRI machine for everyone in your city, your system is costing you way too much.
Quote:
Then of course there was the widely reported case that ended up in front of the Quebec Supreme Court, where some guy whose name escapes me at the moment tried to recover from the Canadian government the costs of his travel and treatment to England (I think it was) because he would have had to wait some absurd amount of time to have it done in Canada, and it was a condition where time was of the essence.
You have your facts in a knot. The procedure in question was elective. In other words, the person's doctors decided that time was not of the essence.
Quote:
I see a lot of arguing over "efficiency" here. In medicine, "efficiency" is not a cut and dried concept. Are we talking dollars and cents efficiency or timeliness efficiency? Because if it is the latter, the US system wins hands down.
No, the U.S. system loses. Why? Forty million people wait forever.
Quote:
And even if we are talking dollars and cents, don't forget that in Canada, prescription drugs are not covered. So someone waiting a year and a half for an "elective" surgery (a knee operation or hip operation, say) could burn through thousands of dollars of pain medication waiting for the surgery.
The system is not perfect. We need a national pharmacare program. Prescription drugs provided in-hospital are covered under medicare.
Quote:
In the meantime, they might also be disabled to the point they cannot work properly, or even at all, which means extra costs to other government redistribution programs such as workman's compensation or disabilty benefits or unemployment insurance or whatever.
These issues are factored into the physicians decision regarding the urgency of the procedure.
Quote:
Then of course there is the whole quality of life issue -- how do you assign a dollar value to that? It's no picnic being semi-crippled and suffering chronic pain for months (or in some cases a year or more) on end.
Unless, of course, you're poor and can't afford insurance at all?
Again, all of these issues are factored into urgency.
Quote:
It is this last reason more than any other that leads so many Canadians to cross the border and get themselves treatment immediately. Sure, they could wait and eventually get it done for "free" in Canada. Did you ever stop to think WHY so many prefer to spend the money to get fixed up NOW rather than wait months and save a couple thousand bucks? Do you think it is because these people are stupid or something? Remember, the folks who get this work done outside Canada never get reimbursed for their expenses -- they still pay the same taxes as everyone else. Yet they dig into their own pockets regardless. These people get socked twice -- they are paying US prices for the medical care they actually receive AND they are paying Canadian prices for that same care which was never delivered. But to these folks, it's worth it.
Would you like to support any of your claims with any evidence? Do you have figures that indicate how many Canadians cross the border for medical care annually?
If a patient has to wait an inappropriate length of time for service, it is the result of a medical error by a physician. Medical error is as likely to happen under one system structure as it is under another.
Now, I can't speak to healthcare coverage, because I am in the P&C business, but I can tell you that what DOES happen a lot of the times is that people will assume they have coverage for things that they do not, and then seek to reclaim those costs. That's more a function of not reading their policy than insurance companies trying to "screw" their customers.
Information asymmetry has a lot to do with this as well. Most average people can't understand the legal jargon that comprises insurance policies, and this benefits the insurer. Tell people that they're covered for any treatment that is medically necessary, and then let them pay for it through their taxes, probably at a rate that costs them less than the equivalent private insurance package.
Quote:
And again, I feel the need to remind you that very rarely will you have lawyers directly under the employ of an insurance company. Insurance companies will generally contract panel councils, and many insurance companies use the same law firms.
Whether it's one lawyer working on 100 cases, or two lawyers each working on 50, it's the same thing. Whether it's an in-house lawyer or a contracted council, it makes no difference (in fact, it might actually cost more).
Quote:
I absolutely agree with you, which is why I suggest that a big factor in removing these costs is to modify the way that torts are handled.
This would not absolve your system of its vast bureaucratic waste.
Quote:
Of course it does! Same population will, generally, require the same amount of manpower to file claims, determine scope of coverage, underwrite, etc. All you'd be doing is bring it under one umbrella. 10 underwriters doing the same amount of work is going to cost the same whether they are working for 2 companies or 10.
You're misguided here, Todd. Economies of scale. Fewer secretaries, fewer facilities, fewer everything, basically.
Quote:
Excuse me? Did you just suggest that I don't have a brain?
No. What I meant to say was "Every health policy expert with a brain knows that they need some sort of socialized, universal health insurance system." I apologize for implying otherwise.
EDIT: Addressed Phred's comments
Phred wrote:
[Talking about the the volume of diagnostic imaging machines.]
Equipment density is a poor barometre of quality. A much more important and appropriate question is 'do you have enough equipment to meet the needs of your population.' If you have an MRI machine for everyone in your city, your system is costing you way too much.
Quote:
Then of course there was the widely reported case that ended up in front of the Quebec Supreme Court, where some guy whose name escapes me at the moment tried to recover from the Canadian government the costs of his travel and treatment to England (I think it was) because he would have had to wait some absurd amount of time to have it done in Canada, and it was a condition where time was of the essence.
You have your facts in a knot. The procedure in question was elective. In other words, the person's doctors decided that time was not of the essence.
Quote:
I see a lot of arguing over "efficiency" here. In medicine, "efficiency" is not a cut and dried concept. Are we talking dollars and cents efficiency or timeliness efficiency? Because if it is the latter, the US system wins hands down.
No, the U.S. system loses. Why? Forty million people wait forever.
Quote:
And even if we are talking dollars and cents, don't forget that in Canada, prescription drugs are not covered. So someone waiting a year and a half for an "elective" surgery (a knee operation or hip operation, say) could burn through thousands of dollars of pain medication waiting for the surgery.
The system is not perfect. We need a national pharmacare program. Prescription drugs provided in-hospital are covered under medicare.
Quote:
In the meantime, they might also be disabled to the point they cannot work properly, or even at all, which means extra costs to other government redistribution programs such as workman's compensation or disabilty benefits or unemployment insurance or whatever.
These issues are factored into the physicians decision regarding the urgency of the procedure.
Quote:
Then of course there is the whole quality of life issue -- how do you assign a dollar value to that? It's no picnic being semi-crippled and suffering chronic pain for months (or in some cases a year or more) on end.
Unless, of course, you're poor and can't afford insurance at all?
Again, all of these issues are factored into urgency.
Quote:
It is this last reason more than any other that leads so many Canadians to cross the border and get themselves treatment immediately. Sure, they could wait and eventually get it done for "free" in Canada. Did you ever stop to think WHY so many prefer to spend the money to get fixed up NOW rather than wait months and save a couple thousand bucks? Do you think it is because these people are stupid or something? Remember, the folks who get this work done outside Canada never get reimbursed for their expenses -- they still pay the same taxes as everyone else. Yet they dig into their own pockets regardless. These people get socked twice -- they are paying US prices for the medical care they actually receive AND they are paying Canadian prices for that same care which was never delivered. But to these folks, it's worth it.
Would you like to support any of your claims with any evidence? Do you have figures that indicate how many Canadians cross the border for medical care annually?
If a patient has to wait an inappropriate length of time for service, it is the result of a medical error by a physician. Medical error is as likely to happen under one system structure as it is under another.
Q & A on american healthcare
Todd wrote:
There are always going to be lawyers, period. Nationalizing one industry is not going to stop Tort cases, nor will it even begin to lower the costs of lawyer fees (especially if those lawyers continue to work on a contingency). All nationalizing it will do is mask those costs by distributing it over a wider base. I prefer to control the costs in the first place.
In a profit driven system, there are substantial incentives for administrative build-up. Insurers invest millions in trying to deny their clients insurance. They hire investigation agencies to follow their clients around to see if they're actually hurt. They sue whenever they think they might be able to convince a court not to support their denial of claim. The most important issue, however, is that there are literally thousands of these companies doing the same thing. This is why administration costs are so ridiculously high.
Quote:
You forgot the single biggest market: Patients suing doctors. That's precisely why Doctors carry malpractice and liability insurance (which, to the best of my knowledge, we are not suggesting to nationalize), and a SIGNIFICANT reason that the cost of healthcare has skyrocketed. Are you honestly suggesting these kinds of suits would dissapear by nationalizing it? The only way that would be true is if you blanket the industry with sovereign immunity, which doesn't solve the problem at all, it just makes it impossible to seek retribution.
This seems to be a uniquely American problem. Unless changes are made to your legal system, its unlikely that this would ever be solved under any system. This, however, does not change the fact that administration costs would fall substantially if you switched to a single-payer system.
Quote:
There is nothing to suggest that this would change in the slightest just by nationalizing the industry. You'd still have all the above claim scenarios, with equally many lawyers.
You wouldn't have near as many lawyers or near as much administrative redundancy.
Quote:
Yes, it's called "Claims". It'd be hard to run an insurance company with no department to determine coverage and claim processing.
I'm not talking about insurance claims, I'm talking about lawsuits.
ieatfood wrote:
I think that this report is kinda pointless. It looks at things like waiting times in emergency room. Wow. I mean wow. When you're sick, is that all you care about? Waiting times?
How bout measuring the actual care you get? How bout seeing who gets the more advanced procedures? Who develops the better technology? When people get sick, do foreigners come to America to get state of the art care or do Americans goto foreign countries?
Do you have any evidence that you'd like to put forward to support these claims? Are you certain that Canadians and Germans and the French and Swedes and Norwegians flock to the United States for every medical procedure? I, personally, don't know a single person who has ever had to leave Canada for any sort of treatment whatsoever. Sometimes, here in Canada, there is cross-province transfer of patients, but this is usually an efficiency issue. If you live in a small province, there are certain procedures that are very costly to provide. It is therefore more cost effective to provide extremely specialized services in larger centres and bring the patients to them.
Quote:
How about loooking at the waiting times that actually matter--like how long you have to wait to get an MRI.
First you say that wait times don't matter, and now picking and choosing the wait times that are important? What is your rationale?
Quote:
THe US has the best healthcare system in the world. It's not perfect. But it's the best.
This seems like one of those pie in the sky beliefs based on misguided patriotism.
Potemkin wrote:
I think the biggest single obstacle in the way of socialised health care in America is ideological rather than technical or economic.
This is definitely true. The Uwe Reinhardt excerpt that I started the 'Huge Debate' thread with speaks to this directly. Everyone in America with a brain knows that they need some sort of socialized, universal health insurance system, but everyone has their own conception of what it should look like. In typically American fashion, if each individual can't have the exact system that they desire, they default to the current non-system.
Quote:
Because of the perceived equality of opportunity in America (which does not exist to anything like the same extent in Britain), the assumption is that the poor deserve to be poor - they aren't smart enough, or didn't work hard enough, or something. The British do not make that assumption - there are too many examples of stupid aristocrats and intelligent workers for that assumption to stick.
Reinhardt actually speaks to this as well, in that same excerpt. He cites these as the two main reasons for the American refusal to improve their health system: 1) the perception that poor people don't deserve help because they chose to be poor; and 2) policy makers won't reform the system unless the new system looks exactly like they want it to.
There are always going to be lawyers, period. Nationalizing one industry is not going to stop Tort cases, nor will it even begin to lower the costs of lawyer fees (especially if those lawyers continue to work on a contingency). All nationalizing it will do is mask those costs by distributing it over a wider base. I prefer to control the costs in the first place.
In a profit driven system, there are substantial incentives for administrative build-up. Insurers invest millions in trying to deny their clients insurance. They hire investigation agencies to follow their clients around to see if they're actually hurt. They sue whenever they think they might be able to convince a court not to support their denial of claim. The most important issue, however, is that there are literally thousands of these companies doing the same thing. This is why administration costs are so ridiculously high.
Quote:
You forgot the single biggest market: Patients suing doctors. That's precisely why Doctors carry malpractice and liability insurance (which, to the best of my knowledge, we are not suggesting to nationalize), and a SIGNIFICANT reason that the cost of healthcare has skyrocketed. Are you honestly suggesting these kinds of suits would dissapear by nationalizing it? The only way that would be true is if you blanket the industry with sovereign immunity, which doesn't solve the problem at all, it just makes it impossible to seek retribution.
This seems to be a uniquely American problem. Unless changes are made to your legal system, its unlikely that this would ever be solved under any system. This, however, does not change the fact that administration costs would fall substantially if you switched to a single-payer system.
Quote:
There is nothing to suggest that this would change in the slightest just by nationalizing the industry. You'd still have all the above claim scenarios, with equally many lawyers.
You wouldn't have near as many lawyers or near as much administrative redundancy.
Quote:
Yes, it's called "Claims". It'd be hard to run an insurance company with no department to determine coverage and claim processing.
I'm not talking about insurance claims, I'm talking about lawsuits.
ieatfood wrote:
I think that this report is kinda pointless. It looks at things like waiting times in emergency room. Wow. I mean wow. When you're sick, is that all you care about? Waiting times?
How bout measuring the actual care you get? How bout seeing who gets the more advanced procedures? Who develops the better technology? When people get sick, do foreigners come to America to get state of the art care or do Americans goto foreign countries?
Do you have any evidence that you'd like to put forward to support these claims? Are you certain that Canadians and Germans and the French and Swedes and Norwegians flock to the United States for every medical procedure? I, personally, don't know a single person who has ever had to leave Canada for any sort of treatment whatsoever. Sometimes, here in Canada, there is cross-province transfer of patients, but this is usually an efficiency issue. If you live in a small province, there are certain procedures that are very costly to provide. It is therefore more cost effective to provide extremely specialized services in larger centres and bring the patients to them.
Quote:
How about loooking at the waiting times that actually matter--like how long you have to wait to get an MRI.
First you say that wait times don't matter, and now picking and choosing the wait times that are important? What is your rationale?
Quote:
THe US has the best healthcare system in the world. It's not perfect. But it's the best.
This seems like one of those pie in the sky beliefs based on misguided patriotism.
Potemkin wrote:
I think the biggest single obstacle in the way of socialised health care in America is ideological rather than technical or economic.
This is definitely true. The Uwe Reinhardt excerpt that I started the 'Huge Debate' thread with speaks to this directly. Everyone in America with a brain knows that they need some sort of socialized, universal health insurance system, but everyone has their own conception of what it should look like. In typically American fashion, if each individual can't have the exact system that they desire, they default to the current non-system.
Quote:
Because of the perceived equality of opportunity in America (which does not exist to anything like the same extent in Britain), the assumption is that the poor deserve to be poor - they aren't smart enough, or didn't work hard enough, or something. The British do not make that assumption - there are too many examples of stupid aristocrats and intelligent workers for that assumption to stick.
Reinhardt actually speaks to this as well, in that same excerpt. He cites these as the two main reasons for the American refusal to improve their health system: 1) the perception that poor people don't deserve help because they chose to be poor; and 2) policy makers won't reform the system unless the new system looks exactly like they want it to.
Obstacles to Socialized Healthcare
I think the biggest single obstacle in the way of socialised health care in America is ideological rather than technical or economic. In Britain, the NHS is enormously popular, and has been since it was set up in 1948. The reason for that popularity is not its efficiency (though it's more efficient than the American system), but the fact that it provides equal health care to everyone, no matter what their relative social or economic status. It is, in principle, free at the point of delivery. The rigid semi-feudal class system in Britain means that the British people have never lost sight of equality as a social goal to aspire to, and as a moral ideal. Because of the perceived equality of opportunity in America (which does not exist to anything like the same extent in Britain), the assumption is that the poor deserve to be poor - they aren't smart enough, or didn't work hard enough, or something. The British do not make that assumption - there are too many examples of stupid aristocrats and intelligent workers for that assumption to stick. Somebody's wealth or social status has no connection with their level of intelligence or how hard they work. To apportion health care - which their lives may depend upon - on the basis of wealth or social status (which is what a privatised health care system does) is therefore perceived in Britain as a terrible injustice, and essentially immoral. In America, it is perceived as entirely just and entirely moral. Until that ideological barrier is overcome, there's no point debating the relative economic merits or demerits of a privatised or socialised health care system - socialised health care was not adopted in Britain because we thought it would be more efficient, but because we thought it would be more just.
Q&A session with a cold hearted capitalist
Quote:
Cause your plan sounds like cuba to me so far.
If you think these things sound like Cuba I don't believe our debate is going to go very far. For example:
Quote:
Simply taxing 100% of everything above X income? Seizing property? Nationalizing major corporations?
None of these things are realistic goals, at least in the short term. Nationalizing major corporations wouldn't work in most cases view; instead, we could strive for worker ownership of firms, or follow Roemer's plan of coupon capitalism where each person owns a certain ammount of stock, which she can trade but cannot sell, and hence ownership of them is technically very widely dispersed. The property is not seized, the government slowly buys the stocks from private companies and distributes them to individuals. His plan can be called 'coupon capitalism' or considered a variety of market socialism, of which there are many. It is detailed in his book "A Future For Socialism".
A 100% tax rate is not a reasonable plan right now, it won't be 20 years from now, and it might never be. For right now, I would argue, we should work on turning regressive taxes (sales tax and social security tax) into non regressive taxes. making the income tax more progressive is a possibility. Keeping the inheritance tax would be good. I think it may be time to strongly consider something like a wealth tax, to fund redistribution of assets, instead of money.
Quote:
Because public schools currently have approximate equality by and large.
I can't believe we live in the same country. Based on what I've read and seen first hand about schools we have basically two school systems: one, in wealthy areas, which works rather well, and another, in poor areas, which works, well, poorly.
The first thing we should do in this area is eliminate the property/locality based way of funding schools and replace it with a national one which funds schools at an equal level.
I have few problems with private schools as long as all people can afford to go to all of the ones that are in existensce.
Quote:
How will you do this in ways that don't require iron-fisted coercion and imprisonment of "violators", and in ways that don't utterly destroy our economy?
Using the first few policies I mentioned helps, having a proportional represtation system helps, doing what countries in western europe have done, particularly Sweden, helps, allowing sympathy strikes helps, encouraging worker owned firms as well as Employee shared ownership firms helps, campaign finance reform on a massive level helps, seriously there are all sorts of indirect ways to go about this.
Quote:
high-sounding axioms but what is *your* plan?
I am arguing for general principles of justice that should be guiding social and economic policy. What exactly the best way is to live up to those principles depends a lot on circumstances. I've given details on two plans I agree with on this forum in the past.
Quote:
Maybe I'm just stupid, can you explain how you will "redistribute income and wealth" and "increas the power of labor relative to capital" in a way that doesn't trample on freedoms and brutally suppress individual initiative and send our nation into penury? Please explain.
There is little evidence that either redistribution or increasing the power of labor 'depress individual initiative or send nations into penury'; the experience in several other democracies tells you this.
As for freedom, we must be using different definitions of freedom; you must seem to think the U.S. is a 'more free' country than Norway or Sweden or Japan.
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UBI
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How is this different from welfare I don't really know but ok.
Everybody gets it always, indefinitely, whether they are working or not. Not like welfare, where only certain people get it and a person loses the benefits if they get a job.
The ultimate justification of the UBI, as argued for by Van Parijis in his book "Real Freedom For All", is freedom, as the title suggests, the thing you seem to be concerned most about: the freedom to have time to engage in training and education, as well as the freedom to 'say no' to state agencies and employers, without being punished via matieral deprivation. It also reflects the commitment of 'real libertarianism' (Van Parijis is a 'left-libertarian', and has been one of many scholars to argue against the 'right wing' libertarian view of freedom which is prevalent on this board) to promoting freedom, conceived as a generic good; the real libertarian urges that we provide people with the resources they need to achieve their aims, whatever those aims are.
Here is a link to a description of the idea the idea[/url], and how it is supposed to help with some other concerns as well.
Edited by moorobot (05/31/06 09:00 AM)
Post Extras: Print Post Remind Me! Notify Moderator
Cause your plan sounds like cuba to me so far.
If you think these things sound like Cuba I don't believe our debate is going to go very far. For example:
Quote:
Simply taxing 100% of everything above X income? Seizing property? Nationalizing major corporations?
None of these things are realistic goals, at least in the short term. Nationalizing major corporations wouldn't work in most cases view; instead, we could strive for worker ownership of firms, or follow Roemer's plan of coupon capitalism where each person owns a certain ammount of stock, which she can trade but cannot sell, and hence ownership of them is technically very widely dispersed. The property is not seized, the government slowly buys the stocks from private companies and distributes them to individuals. His plan can be called 'coupon capitalism' or considered a variety of market socialism, of which there are many. It is detailed in his book "A Future For Socialism".
A 100% tax rate is not a reasonable plan right now, it won't be 20 years from now, and it might never be. For right now, I would argue, we should work on turning regressive taxes (sales tax and social security tax) into non regressive taxes. making the income tax more progressive is a possibility. Keeping the inheritance tax would be good. I think it may be time to strongly consider something like a wealth tax, to fund redistribution of assets, instead of money.
Quote:
Because public schools currently have approximate equality by and large.
I can't believe we live in the same country. Based on what I've read and seen first hand about schools we have basically two school systems: one, in wealthy areas, which works rather well, and another, in poor areas, which works, well, poorly.
The first thing we should do in this area is eliminate the property/locality based way of funding schools and replace it with a national one which funds schools at an equal level.
I have few problems with private schools as long as all people can afford to go to all of the ones that are in existensce.
Quote:
How will you do this in ways that don't require iron-fisted coercion and imprisonment of "violators", and in ways that don't utterly destroy our economy?
Using the first few policies I mentioned helps, having a proportional represtation system helps, doing what countries in western europe have done, particularly Sweden, helps, allowing sympathy strikes helps, encouraging worker owned firms as well as Employee shared ownership firms helps, campaign finance reform on a massive level helps, seriously there are all sorts of indirect ways to go about this.
Quote:
high-sounding axioms but what is *your* plan?
I am arguing for general principles of justice that should be guiding social and economic policy. What exactly the best way is to live up to those principles depends a lot on circumstances. I've given details on two plans I agree with on this forum in the past.
Quote:
Maybe I'm just stupid, can you explain how you will "redistribute income and wealth" and "increas the power of labor relative to capital" in a way that doesn't trample on freedoms and brutally suppress individual initiative and send our nation into penury? Please explain.
There is little evidence that either redistribution or increasing the power of labor 'depress individual initiative or send nations into penury'; the experience in several other democracies tells you this.
As for freedom, we must be using different definitions of freedom; you must seem to think the U.S. is a 'more free' country than Norway or Sweden or Japan.
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UBI
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How is this different from welfare I don't really know but ok.
Everybody gets it always, indefinitely, whether they are working or not. Not like welfare, where only certain people get it and a person loses the benefits if they get a job.
The ultimate justification of the UBI, as argued for by Van Parijis in his book "Real Freedom For All", is freedom, as the title suggests, the thing you seem to be concerned most about: the freedom to have time to engage in training and education, as well as the freedom to 'say no' to state agencies and employers, without being punished via matieral deprivation. It also reflects the commitment of 'real libertarianism' (Van Parijis is a 'left-libertarian', and has been one of many scholars to argue against the 'right wing' libertarian view of freedom which is prevalent on this board) to promoting freedom, conceived as a generic good; the real libertarian urges that we provide people with the resources they need to achieve their aims, whatever those aims are.
Here is a link to a description of the idea the idea[/url], and how it is supposed to help with some other concerns as well.
Edited by moorobot (05/31/06 09:00 AM)
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Taxes are great
Until you do, since people can't 'own' something which doesn't exist, it can't be 'theft' because theft presupposes ownership.
You guys just assert it over and over, following the old and cheap political tactic of 'tell a lie enough times and eventually people start to believe it', without ever demonstarting that anybody legitmately owns pre-tax income in the U.S. today.
Example: How you think this when the very dollar bills that the economy runs on are printed by the government is a good question. (How can you own what the government produces, btw, if the government can't own what you produce?) Try to imagine participating in the economy without using public roads, publicly funded communication infrastructure, publicly educated employees, publicly funded electricity, water, gas, and other utilities, publicly funded information, technology, research and development -- it's absolutely impossible. The only way to avoid public goods and services is to move out of the country entirely, or at least become such a hermit, living off the fruits of your own labor, that you reduce your consumption of public goods and services to as little as possible.
Or this:
Suppose the gang of ten men had helped you buy a car, pitching in with a loan that covered 40 percent of the sticker price (which is about the percentage of the GDP devoted in the United States to taxes). And suppose they simply wanted return payment. By not returning the favor, it is you who become the thief. If you want a car that is 100 percent yours, simply pay the full price of one. Of course, by accepting the loan from the gang of ten men, you were able to buy a better car than you could afford in the first place. The same is true with all government services: they helped you in ways we can't imagine to earn income.
For example, if lawyers never recieved any schooling, I'm guessing they wouldn't have been able to be lawyers. But almost all at some point recieved there schooling from the government. It's impossible to seperate the two; an individual's income depends completely on an inseperable combination of her effort and the government's. Therefore government creates the income right now. It doesn't matter whether or not it could be different; as long as we don't live in anarchy already taxes are not theft.
Arguments like "taxation is theft" are extremely egoistic. It's the equivalent of saying "Everything I make is by my own effort" -- a patently false statement in an interdependent, specialized economy where the free market is supported by public goods and services. People who make arguments like this are big on taking these goods but short on seeing why they need to pay for them. It doesn't matter that they believe these public services should be privatized -- the point is that the government is nonetheless producing them, and they need to be paid for. It doesn't matter that any given individual doesn't agree with how the government is spending their money -- many people don't agree with how corporations pollute the environment, but they still pay for their merchandise. It doesn't matter that any given individual thinks some government programs are wasteful and inefficient -- so are many private bureaucracies, but their goods still demand payment. If tax opponents argue that a person doesn't have to patronize a company he disagrees with, then liberals can argue that a person doesn't have to vote for a public official he disagrees with.
Ultimately, any argument against paying taxes should be compared to its private sector equivalent, and the fallacy will become evident.
You guys just assert it over and over, following the old and cheap political tactic of 'tell a lie enough times and eventually people start to believe it', without ever demonstarting that anybody legitmately owns pre-tax income in the U.S. today.
Example: How you think this when the very dollar bills that the economy runs on are printed by the government is a good question. (How can you own what the government produces, btw, if the government can't own what you produce?) Try to imagine participating in the economy without using public roads, publicly funded communication infrastructure, publicly educated employees, publicly funded electricity, water, gas, and other utilities, publicly funded information, technology, research and development -- it's absolutely impossible. The only way to avoid public goods and services is to move out of the country entirely, or at least become such a hermit, living off the fruits of your own labor, that you reduce your consumption of public goods and services to as little as possible.
Or this:
Suppose the gang of ten men had helped you buy a car, pitching in with a loan that covered 40 percent of the sticker price (which is about the percentage of the GDP devoted in the United States to taxes). And suppose they simply wanted return payment. By not returning the favor, it is you who become the thief. If you want a car that is 100 percent yours, simply pay the full price of one. Of course, by accepting the loan from the gang of ten men, you were able to buy a better car than you could afford in the first place. The same is true with all government services: they helped you in ways we can't imagine to earn income.
For example, if lawyers never recieved any schooling, I'm guessing they wouldn't have been able to be lawyers. But almost all at some point recieved there schooling from the government. It's impossible to seperate the two; an individual's income depends completely on an inseperable combination of her effort and the government's. Therefore government creates the income right now. It doesn't matter whether or not it could be different; as long as we don't live in anarchy already taxes are not theft.
Arguments like "taxation is theft" are extremely egoistic. It's the equivalent of saying "Everything I make is by my own effort" -- a patently false statement in an interdependent, specialized economy where the free market is supported by public goods and services. People who make arguments like this are big on taking these goods but short on seeing why they need to pay for them. It doesn't matter that they believe these public services should be privatized -- the point is that the government is nonetheless producing them, and they need to be paid for. It doesn't matter that any given individual doesn't agree with how the government is spending their money -- many people don't agree with how corporations pollute the environment, but they still pay for their merchandise. It doesn't matter that any given individual thinks some government programs are wasteful and inefficient -- so are many private bureaucracies, but their goods still demand payment. If tax opponents argue that a person doesn't have to patronize a company he disagrees with, then liberals can argue that a person doesn't have to vote for a public official he disagrees with.
Ultimately, any argument against paying taxes should be compared to its private sector equivalent, and the fallacy will become evident.
Consumption and Spending
"Thirty years ago, a middle-class family with kids might have been content with a four-door sedan of modest size. Imagine the grown-up child of that family, with children of her own, facing the same decision. She might be tempted to say, "A 2,500 pund sedan was good enough for my mom, so it's good enough for me." But on today's roads, surrounded by 6,000 pound Lincoln Navigators and 7,500 pund Ford Excursions, a... Honda Civic doesn't simply look a lot smaller and frailer than it did in 1975. It's objectively more dangerous. The odds of being killed in a collision rise roughly fivefold if you're driving such a vehicle and the other party sits at the helm of a ford excusion. In sheer self-defense, you migh want a bulkier -and costlier-car than mom's." Robert H. Frank, "How the Middle Class Is Injured By Gains At The Top", in Inequality Matters edited by James Lardner and David A. Smith, pgs 138-149.
A second example is the housing market: median house prices depend not only on median incomes, but also income inequality in a neighborhood; that is, in more inegalitarian neighborhoods in America, the house values are far lower than in egalitarian neighborhoods, even when you adjust for median income. Worse still, better than average schooling means better than average education for one's children, and to get better than average schooling one has to pay higher than average property prices. The person who stays at the office for an extra 10 hours/week in order to buy a house in a better school distrit does not intentionally make it more difficult for others to achieve the same goal, but it is an inescapable consequence of her action.
According to Frank's work, inequality is creating an increasing number of situations in which people are forced to choose between unpleasant alternatives. Furthermore, he shows us that through a serious of decisions that make good sense for us individually, we are leading to a situation which makes little sense; another case of the paradox of rationality: individual actions that are rational in isolation leads to outcomes which are collectively irrational. In order to escape these problems, we must cooperate and work collectively.
As he puts it later on in the above quoted essay (pg. 148) "Buying a smaller than average vehicle means a greater risk of dying in an accident. Spending less on an interview suit means a greater risk of not landing the best job. Spending less than others on a house means a greater risk of sending your children to inferior schools. Yet when all spend more on heavier cars, more finely tailored suits, and larger houses, the results tend to be mutually offsetting, just as when all nations spend more on missles and bombs. Spending less frees up money for other pressing uses, but only if everyone does it."
A second example is the housing market: median house prices depend not only on median incomes, but also income inequality in a neighborhood; that is, in more inegalitarian neighborhoods in America, the house values are far lower than in egalitarian neighborhoods, even when you adjust for median income. Worse still, better than average schooling means better than average education for one's children, and to get better than average schooling one has to pay higher than average property prices. The person who stays at the office for an extra 10 hours/week in order to buy a house in a better school distrit does not intentionally make it more difficult for others to achieve the same goal, but it is an inescapable consequence of her action.
According to Frank's work, inequality is creating an increasing number of situations in which people are forced to choose between unpleasant alternatives. Furthermore, he shows us that through a serious of decisions that make good sense for us individually, we are leading to a situation which makes little sense; another case of the paradox of rationality: individual actions that are rational in isolation leads to outcomes which are collectively irrational. In order to escape these problems, we must cooperate and work collectively.
As he puts it later on in the above quoted essay (pg. 148) "Buying a smaller than average vehicle means a greater risk of dying in an accident. Spending less on an interview suit means a greater risk of not landing the best job. Spending less than others on a house means a greater risk of sending your children to inferior schools. Yet when all spend more on heavier cars, more finely tailored suits, and larger houses, the results tend to be mutually offsetting, just as when all nations spend more on missles and bombs. Spending less frees up money for other pressing uses, but only if everyone does it."
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