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Guest Post: The Plan Is Not Working
Submitted by Jeffrey Tucker of Laissez Faire Club blog,
You didn’t want to be the guy chosen to tell Stalin that the wheat crop failed or the production quotas on trucks and cars were not met. Why?
Because despots always blame people, not systems.
In the same way, you don’t want to be the guy chosen to tell Obama that his health care websites are a disaster. But that’s what they are, and he’s managed to blame everyone but himself.
At his hilarious and embarrassing press conference on Monday, the president first assured us that “no one is madder than me” about website failures. Then, of course, he lashed out at the critics and implicitly blamed them for technical failures.
“It’s time for folks to stop rooting for its failure, because hardworking, middle-class families are rooting for its success.”
Someone needs to explain to this guy that rooting one way or another does not cause a website to fail. Crop failures in Russia were not because of the enemies of communism, and the failure of Obama’s health care websites are not due to his political enemies, either. The problem is that government is a bad developer, even when it’s contracting out.
Then Obama said, “We did not wage this long and contentious battle just around a website. That’s not what this was about.”
There he goes again, defining his own reality. By plunging into direct provision of a commercial service and forcing people to cough up for it, Obamacare and its website must be prepared to be accessed just like any other private market service.
People don’t like it when websites are flaky and do not perform. By dismissing this feature — treating the website as if it is just a luxury feature that has nothing to do with the program itself — he reveals that he’s stuck in the past.
A website is not just a convenience. It is the heart and soul of a service that purports to serve everyone. In some ways, this is the most important website this government has ever produced. People don’t use the sites of the Pentagon or Housing and Urban Development. But this one people not only use, but are forced to use. Its failure is epic.
The president then made matters worse. He pointed out that people can download a form and mail it in. Also that people can go to centers where there are people who can help. Then he even rattled off an 800 number that people could call.
As The New York Times said with a funny blandness: “Several calls to the number immediately after he read it produced busy signals.”
Busy signals? I think the last time I heard one of those I was in seventh grade. No one under the age of 25 even knows what a “busy signal” is.
The terrifying thing is that all the troubles with HealthCare.gov foreshadow what’s coming with the new system of health care. Who can doubt it? It is going to be thrown back, inefficient, backward-looking, full of bureaucracy, insanely expensive, characterized by busy signals, and ultimately ending with a demand to come back another day.
Let’s talk about expenses. The website Digital Trends estimates costs between $500 million and perhaps as much as $2 billion before the end of 2014 just to operate the website. This is, quite frankly, unthinkably absurd:
“Facebook, which received its first investment in June 2004, operated for a full six years before surpassing the $500 million mark in June 2010. Twitter, created in 2006, managed to get by with only $360.17 million in total funding until a $400 million boost in 2011. Instagram ginned up just $57.5 million in funding before Facebook bought it for (a staggering) $1 billion last year. And LinkedIn and Spotify, meanwhile, have only raised, respectively, $200 million and $288 million.”
In short, this stuff redefines the word “boondoggle.” And it’s not like the typical Pentagon scandal because, again, this is a regular commercial webspace. Every business in America builds websites. The big difference is they do it with their own money. People know how much sites cost and how they are supposed to operate. That’s why this government website failure is so significant.
It is worth asking why a government with half a billion dollars and vast amounts of time and personnel to make a great site can’t actually manage to do it. It’s not as if the government didn’t have the incentive to do it right. The most powerful people on Earth wanted it to succeed — and in this respect, there is no question that Obama is telling truth. He really did wish upon a star.
The problem is that government is not the best means to do anything well. The problem is the absence of two crucial things: the knowledge to assemble the resources properly and the means to make the economic assessment of the value of competitive resources. This is what happens when you eliminate the profit-and-loss system. You can throw massive resources at a problem with the end result being disappointing.
You didn’t want to be the guy chosen to tell Stalin that the wheat crop failed or the production quotas on trucks and cars were not met. Why?
Because despots always blame people, not systems.
In the same way, you don’t want to be the guy chosen to tell Obama that his health care websites are a disaster. But that’s what they are, and he’s managed to blame everyone but himself.
At his hilarious and embarrassing press conference on Monday, the president first assured us that “no one is madder than me” about website failures. Then, of course, he lashed out at the critics and implicitly blamed them for technical failures.
“It’s time for folks to stop rooting for its failure, because hardworking, middle-class families are rooting for its success.”
Someone needs to explain to this guy that rooting one way or another does not cause a website to fail. Crop failures in Russia were not because of the enemies of communism, and the failure of Obama’s health care websites are not due to his political enemies, either. The problem is that government is a bad developer, even when it’s contracting out.
Then Obama said, “We did not wage this long and contentious battle just around a website. That’s not what this was about.”
There he goes again, defining his own reality. By plunging into direct provision of a commercial service and forcing people to cough up for it, Obamacare and its website must be prepared to be accessed just like any other private market service.
People don’t like it when websites are flaky and do not perform. By dismissing this feature — treating the website as if it is just a luxury feature that has nothing to do with the program itself — he reveals that he’s stuck in the past.
A website is not just a convenience. It is the heart and soul of a service that purports to serve everyone. In some ways, this is the most important website this government has ever produced. People don’t use the sites of the Pentagon or Housing and Urban Development. But this one people not only use, but are forced to use. Its failure is epic.
The president then made matters worse. He pointed out that people can download a form and mail it in. Also that people can go to centers where there are people who can help. Then he even rattled off an 800 number that people could call.
As The New York Times said with a funny blandness: “Several calls to the number immediately after he read it produced busy signals.”
Busy signals? I think the last time I heard one of those I was in seventh grade. No one under the age of 25 even knows what a “busy signal” is.
The terrifying thing is that all the troubles with HealthCare.gov foreshadow what’s coming with the new system of health care. Who can doubt it? It is going to be thrown back, inefficient, backward-looking, full of bureaucracy, insanely expensive, characterized by busy signals, and ultimately ending with a demand to come back another day.
Let’s talk about expenses. The website Digital Trends estimates costs between $500 million and perhaps as much as $2 billion before the end of 2014 just to operate the website. This is, quite frankly, unthinkably absurd:
“Facebook, which received its first investment in June 2004, operated for a full six years before surpassing the $500 million mark in June 2010. Twitter, created in 2006, managed to get by with only $360.17 million in total funding until a $400 million boost in 2011. Instagram ginned up just $57.5 million in funding before Facebook bought it for (a staggering) $1 billion last year. And LinkedIn and Spotify, meanwhile, have only raised, respectively, $200 million and $288 million.”
In short, this stuff redefines the word “boondoggle.” And it’s not like the typical Pentagon scandal because, again, this is a regular commercial webspace. Every business in America builds websites. The big difference is they do it with their own money. People know how much sites cost and how they are supposed to operate. That’s why this government website failure is so significant.
It is worth asking why a government with half a billion dollars and vast amounts of time and personnel to make a great site can’t actually manage to do it. It’s not as if the government didn’t have the incentive to do it right. The most powerful people on Earth wanted it to succeed — and in this respect, there is no question that Obama is telling truth. He really did wish upon a star.
The problem is that government is not the best means to do anything well. The problem is the absence of two crucial things: the knowledge to assemble the resources properly and the means to make the economic assessment of the value of competitive resources. This is what happens when you eliminate the profit-and-loss system. You can throw massive resources at a problem with the end result being disappointing.
Again, it is not just about the website. It is about the whole system. The fools who imposed this system had all the expertise, all the arrogance, all the money, and all the power, and they still couldn’t do it. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of workable and useful websites go up every day.
Has there ever been in our times a better symbol of the failure of government? The truth is this: Government doesn’t work. Here’s the proof. It’s just the beginning. If you want health care in the future, you are going to have to look outside the system. And plenty of people right now are working on that solution, which, unlike that which the experts create, will actually serve human needs. The fools who imposed this system had all the expertise, all the arrogance, all the money, and all the power, and they still couldn’t do it. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of workable and useful websites go up every day.
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The insurance industry can justify anything they want because we demand access to insurance that costs us an inconsequential amount to provide open heart surgery, diabetes treatment, cancer treatments and possibly hip replacements at little or no cost to us. Its really not hard you see because they understand as we are completely irrational and without a clue that they can do just about anything they want and we will cry like little girls and then go along. Why do we think we can buy "insurance" that somehow will cost us less than what the actual medical bills add up to unless they are robbing the shit out of others that are getting nothing for their money besides a memebrship card? Government involvement only insures thay have a much larger group of potential victims to rob. If we truly each get our monies worth for what we are paying, the math is every bit as impossible as our national debt and social security. Somebody is always getting fucked in these ponzi schemes and insurance is one of the worst. Its always something for nothing.
Far be it from me to quote Karl Denninger, who banned me from his forum.
"The entire health system is an organized racketeering outfit that has gotten laws passed to make their conduct legal -- conduct that in virtually any other field would be an outright criminal felony.
The industry doesn't even try to hide their conduct. Indeed, there are even specific laws in many states, called "Certificate Of Need" (or "CON") laws, that are formalization of cartel behavior otherwise prohibited by The Sherman Act. This leads to utterly common situations where the price for a given procedure usually varies by as much as 400% from one hospital in a region to another and in many cases varies by more than 1,000%, and it is virtually impossible for you to determine the price before you are treated."
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=225369
So, how do you see this monopoly behavior working its way into some mythical free market without government involvement? Deregulation is a neoliberal's wet dream.
Why don't you do yourself a favor and look at some real world examples of health care systems that work better for less money than ours. Like every other developed country. They all figured out that universal care works best. But the neoliberals who own our legislature are still selling the useful idiots on "free" markets.
If insurance companies did not exist and we purchased our healthcare from the actual providers, the concentration of power would be diminshed and I believe that is the root of the problem. Also we must recognize that insurance is a redistributive system designed to deliberately force healthy people to pay for the sick. When the insurance first began there were lots of participants largely because the price was low and large companies saw it as an easy benefit to offer to attract employees. The problem is with all pyramid schemes the costs become ever larger to provide the payout required to keep it growing. Without growth it dies. As costs have increased, those who saw it as a luxury bowed out and increasingly the only ones remaining need the care...so all costs and little income. Hillary and Obamas solution is an easy one. Simply FORCE everyone into it to help defray the costs. The problem is that demand for healthcare has grown, not just in number of people but also what they expect. Fifty years ago costs were containable because it was pretty much accepted you would die if it was something serious. Today, treatments for everything are available as well as every kind of transplant and replacement imaginable. My parents labored their whole life to save for their retirement and healthcare. They both died at home when they realized that further treatments would only slighty extend their lives but completely wipe out their savings. It was important for them to leave something to their children as they were not afforded that from theirs. It was their choice. It now appears it is not anymore as they would be forced to participate regardless. I want the best healthcare I can afford, not affordable healthcare as defined by the State. I want free competition with a legal structure to create transparency in medical issues from doctor history to drug effectiveness and the ability to contract for a medical service for a set fee, just like i have to do with my customers. I have read much about other systems and have no way to judge them because I am not there to experience it first hand and have no idea what the real costs are as most are rolled into general taxation revenues, but we do know that most of these systems are sustained by very high tax rates and most of these countries are as bankrupt as we are. We should be willing to acknowledge that the best "system" is one the encourages and results in the greatest prosperity and freedom for its people.
The costs of health care have increased much more in our for profit system than under other countries'universal systems. Health care is not a discretionary good and needs to be available to everybody, at least at a basic level. I don't think people who get free health care will be complaining about waiting 6 months for knee surgery, but if that is a problem they could get insurance, as can you if you feel the basic level of care provided by the state isn't sufficient (similar to Canadian system). And they will see their tax dollars working for them instead of funding NSA spying and drone technology.
The other part of providing health care, the part that Obamacare also ignores, is increasing the number of low cost providers. This means taking on the AMA, but since we're already taking on the insurance industry why not go big? Many well paying jobs could become available by subsidizing medical education for physicians and other health care providers, and the VA system's model for salaried providers has proven to be the most efficient and effective model in our economy.
There are ways to make health care cheap and available to all. Nobody should be forced to decide whether it would be better to die than to have your estate attacked by medical creditors. I think even the neoliberal version of capitalism we are being force fed can provide a service that the rest of the developed world takes for granted.
What is it with all of your ilk who desire oh-so-much to force everyone to obey your beliefs on how everything should be run?
Let all systems operate freely and voluntarily and you will see how quickly universal health care becomes as successful as communism has been.
I would undoubtedly choose an unfettered free-market health care system. You know, the one with innovation and price competition and no government interference. Things you hate.
Unfettered monopoly power! The new gilded age!
The costs of health care have increased because the Fed's gave preferential tax treatment to insurance and health care plans that were provided by employers. It was an unintended consequence of wage and price controls in WWII. Doing so hid the cost of the insurance and care from the consumers which, unsurprisingly, created excess demand. At the same time the Fed's have empowered medical cartels such as the AMA which restricts supply of providers. Additional regulation prevents natural market pricing in provision of medical technology for things like MRI's. Get gove out and cost will come down and health care will improve. THe problem of health care for the poor will be addressed by charity as it was before the growth of .fed. Why do you think so many hospitals have religious names and affiliations?
Charity. Right. Is that related to trickle down?
We are too stupid and weak to fend for ourselves in this world, but yet the answer lies in our right to vote. Anyone see a contradiction here? We want a world full of intelligent citizens fully capable of providing for themselves and being an intregal part of a prosperous society, yet create vast governmental structures to hold secure those too weak and stupid to be such, while telling them their plight is not of their own fault but one of society's and of the wolves who would eat them if given the chance. Our education system has fully embraced the notion that we should only excel to such a point as to not create discomfort or envy amongst our peers. I fail to understand regardless of how kind hearted this approach may seem, how we will survive it, especially in a world where such laudable ideals are not universally held. Only a utopian dreaming fool can believe our government can save us from ourselves, as they are but us, and not particularly the best of us, with no restraints beyond their lying skills and how much money they can steal from us. After all, the law is on their side.
"I didn't build that website."
Honestly, I think this weekend was the worst produced weekend yet on the hedge. Just GP, after GP of dribble and rehashed ZH articles.
Sorry, but someone has to say something.
Over.
just go back to the tV and all will be well.
Did you see how the Lions beat the Cowboys today in the last minute, Bing? Amazing.
Missed it bro, but this message was really only meant for the quality control guys and since they took down the 800 number I cannot call customer service directly.
But carry on. Go watch your sporting shows and such, pet your pussy or whatever, she looks nice. Give her some nip for me.
Over.
She goes goofy over the 'nip. Cool looking B2 bomber or whatever avatar.
Ahh. Reminds me of the umpteen times Buffalo, 0 and 10, stomped the Cowgirls.
Thanks for playing the Bait Click Game.
Our regrets on your elimination as a contestant.
For your consolation prize please see the door knob on the way out.
I spent 8 years calling George Bush and Elaine Chao liars. They missed the US jobs creation target every month except for 3. With the jobs that have gone offshore, health care benefits have gone offshore. Republicans can't say tax cuts create US jobs. Politically, they've shot themselves in the foot.I took nearly a ream of paper and put it on file at my local unemployment office. They accepted it and there's no better place to check on unemployment status in the US. The career counselors at a community college and the unemployment office staff.
I've said if you're unemployed or underemployed, you should be in a Republican politician's office conducting your job search. I stood in front of a Republican running for election, called him a liar, to his face, and 80 people standing in line waiting to vote heard me confront him. He lost his election. That's the point we have to get to in the United States, confronting failed Republican ideology.
I get it now!
It's the Republicans' fault that Obama is a dim-witted failure.
Makes sense now. Thanks for explaining!
Yes, exactly! What we are facing is the result of failed republican ideology which can only be outdone by its close but even more oppressive centrally controlled, growing ever larger, liberal progressive one. Exactly how many Democrats did you call liar? How about Obama? Him too? Say what you will and I don't say this in support of any republican, but you are going to have to dig pretty fucking deep to find a more failed presidency than Obama's. Do you look at the numbers or are they still all Bush's fault?
Obamacare the major signature achievement of the Obama presidency. The one achievement no other Democrat president could ever get passed and look at the train wreck it is and trust me it's going to get worse. Americans workers are being moved to part time in order for employers to avoid the cost, insurance doubling on individual plans, deductibles doubling in cost, insureds being thrown off of their plans because of cost, doctors leaving the business, more people losing their insurance than who have so far signed up, etc. But you come here to complain about Republicans who not one person voted for it and recently all they asked was for a delay in implementing a failed policy in order to at least deal with it like an adult. My question is who pays you to come here and act like a retard?
You are what you called the Shrub and Elaine. Has this months paycheck from Soros posted in your account, yet.
You ain't heroic. Your just a punk MFer! If you applied your rhetoric equally and without regard to R or D then I would salute you. But instead you got the flying fickle finger of fate.
TROLL alert. Like you are some type of holy saint that deserves a job, just because. Well, the world is tough,,it's ALOT tougher if your STUPID!
BTW - I junked you for being retarded.
What would be more impressive if you would've then spent the next 5 years calling Obama and his minions liars as well. At least you would have the appearance of being intellectually honest.
You said it before I could... PLUS +
Hayek in "Road to Serfdom" exposes the impossibility for central planning to work. It comes down to knowledge, or the impossibility to have all that one would need to centrally plan and economy. Remember the lines for basics in the Soviet Union and the continuous struggle for the masses to just have toilet paper in the house.
That aside, the criminals of the government and banksters only want to steal and kill. Any statement otherwise is an excuse, a lie, to justify their crimes.
Is it time for the guillotines yet?!
Hayek is wrong about the benefits of central planning/single payer when it comes to providing health care. We can see what kind of system the monopolists choose to construct. Government is merely a tool to create more revenue stream for cronies in our market based profiteering system. The rest of the world has seen the benefit of single payer and health care expenses representing a significantly smaller part of their GDP, while our privatized system keeps demanding a larger share.
Check out this comparison of a true liberal health care program as opposed the the neoliberal solution of Obamacare (based on the other side of the neoliberal duopoly's Heritage plan):
http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/what-kind-problem-aca-rollout-liberalism
Shut up propagandist. I keep seeing you tools spout that someone is wrong, but never prove any of it. I'd like to see some of you put some proof out for that pudding you're selling.
Proof? I have the rest of the world's health care systems as a model. What do you have?
And which "rest of the world's system" are you touting exactly. Exactly which model is set up to service 350 Million people which is the apporximate population of the US? Why do citizens from "the rest of the world's system" come to the US so many times for complicated surgeries? Perhaps the rest of the world is drafting off the amount americans pay for healthcare and pharmacuticals which has been made possible by their lobbying efforts in good ole DC. Have you actually used "the rest of the worlds healthcare system" or are you just spouting off about what you've read or heard or perhaps even gotten from their PR systems? Just curious because you don't truly know about a system until you have to live in the system. Just wait until you hear how your healtcare is a burden to the "public purse" and some government criteria decides your need for healthcare or medication based on the "public purse".
It's much better to rush some half assed crappy thing in order to get it passed then to actually consider the patient's needs and the use of common sense and logic. I hope this all ends well and works like the cheerleaders claim but i'm a healthy skeptic and realist even though my skepticism or your cheerleading will have zero effect on the outcomes. Unfortunately we will probably be mislead on the outcomes much like we are on every other government led venture. The truth is never the first option for governments.
A single payer system only gets MORE economies of scale and bargaining power with Big Pharma and corporate health care providers and eliminate the huge layer of inefficiency that the insurance gatekeepers impose. We already are running two single payer systems, Medicare and Veterans Administration. Most people I know who pay taxes agree that it would be nice to get such a great benefit from their tax dollars, a benefit they appreciate every time they have to use health care services.
Check out the arguments here and let me know where you see error:
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/health_care_reform_in_the_united_states_arguments_for_a_single_payer_system.php
You are comparing the socialist system with the fascist system. Neither is worth a broke dick.
How about a comparison with a free-market system?
Oh, that's right. Government doesn't allow them.
The rest of the developed world (which must be socialist according to you) provides universal health care to citizens more cheaply and efficiently than our disfunctional capitalist model. We can learn from real world models to overcome the inefficiencies and failures of our system.
How is he wrong? Are they affordable? Debt to GDP levels would suggest they are not. Are they better than people paying their own way? Do you have a statistic? Oh wait, we should socialize costs because the abuse of the commons doesn't work in this situation? If it so good, then why can't people opt out?
You start from a position that requires State healthcare. First you have to justify it and you have failed to do that. This is pure propaganda.
We should provide a basic level of social goods to citizens of our country to benefit the economy as a whole. The debt levels are a different story altogether, more about banks creating our money supply through fractional reserve lending and gaming our capital markets to siphon the wealth upward. Why should we give up social gains to satisfy the insatiable needs of the corporate vampires?
Why? Because you say so? Debt levels have nothing to do with spending above revenue collection? Really? You advise we steal that we have not earned or worked for and give it to others that have done nothing? I think that's called communism and when properly labelled, most Americans don't want it.
Our social gains were the result of debt creation, how is a debt a gain? It is a temporary rise in your standard of living against future earnings. Hey buddy, this is the future and I want to be paid- with interest or become a slave.
You may feel fine about enslaving your children and grandchildren, but I find that abhorrent in the extreme.
I would like to see the banks taken out of the money creation business, the end of fractional reserve lending, and the federal reserve become an agency of the treasury. Along with financing health care, funds (backed by our sovereignty) would be used for a citizens dividend, which would both help reduce debt for the indebted and create liquidity for those who spend their dividends. The future, especially with the huge productivity gains we've had, could be pretty labor free if we let the citizens have the benefit of productivity gains instead of multinational corporations who serve the elite. I would like to see energy resources nationalized and small business creation encouraged by a tax code that punishes the globalists. But if you want to call anything outside the box communism, I guess that's your perogative. Certainly makes it easier to "educate" the public when you paint with such a broad brush, isn't it?
Here is an article on the Chicago Plan, which reinvents the financial system:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/josh-ryan-collins/return-to-sovereign-money
Well, so you won't answer any of my questions? Let's move on then. Why do we need a federal reserve at all? If Treasury has not been able to stop deficit spending, why would they with the FED in their pocket? Why not just eliminate legal tender laws?
Where do these funds come from? The unicorn stable? If a business is too heavily penalized by taxation, what makes you think they would stay? Why wouldn't they move all their operations out of country and beyond government reach? Have you thought this out? You don't think other countries wouldn't bid for their capital? Heard about Ireland, Luxembourg, China or Singapore?
Please cite these huge producivity gains, because all the numbers I've seen show no growth since 2008. Oh, and we don't have to work? The global corporations are going to give us their profits? What planet do you live on? Because it isn't Earth.
Nationalize the energy resources? You mean like Venezuela and Argentina? That's going well...
How do you punish the globalists, without a global government? Oh, I see now, you want the NWO. Well, why didn't you say so!
Who is stupid enough to given you an up arrow? One, I understand, from yourself. Do you have a friend at the asylum with you?
Your questions weren't answered directly because a new debt free monetary system would eliminate them. Money would be equity in the commonwealth instead of debt. We wouldn't necessarily need a federal reserve except for money printing, so it would be neutered (as an agency of the treasury) or eliminated.
The Chicago Plan was incorporated into Kucinich's HR 2990 NEED Act, which died in committee after Kucinich was gerrymandered out of office:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEED_Act
So, how are you going to divide all the existing capital, land and wealth before you create your new debt free system? Will you confiscate it all then reallocate it? Who will do the valuations? What keeps the new government (because you will need to, to pull this off) from changing their minds (alla Stalin and Lenin)? The FED functions as a clearinghouse, without which banks become real problematic, how do you set this up. The FED doesn't do money printing, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing does. How about those pesky Treasuries and not to mention trillions in cash held by foreign countries?
The list here is onerous, because you have no idea of how much is involved. This is the problem with ignorance. My questions weren't answered because you couldn't answer them.
Tax the wealth, big middle class exemptions, until inequality starts to narrow again. The banks will have to worry about their debt issues. They will no longer be too big to fail because they won't be in the vital money creation business anymore. They will have to find investors willing to get more than 0% interest that citizens would get in their postal bank accounts. Just a few ideas, lots of details to be worked out, but certainly a better outcome for our economy than the neoliberal nightmare oligarchy we are in now.
If you want more details on how it works, start with Kumhof's 2012 IMF Working Paper, "The Chicago Plan, Revisited"
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12202.pdf
So, you're saying first and foremost, theft. You want to steal, what you have no right to. Where does that end? What is the line? Because every attempt at "taxing the wealth" has degenerated into tyranny. Worse, your so naive as to think the people that run this world would allow it. If they let this go- I think I know how it will turn out.
Do a study of debt jubilees. You will find nothing changes, the same people end up with all the money. you can't level the playing field, because some people are savers and some are spenders. Some lend debt and some accumulate it. The IMF is an elite operation, do you even pay attention? They are the wonderful people that enslaved the third world "helping them out".
The Chicago Plan- who controls government issuance of the money? Because we haven't seen the government ever abuse that? Do you understand the term inflation? Monetary inflation? Worse, the banks can lend it out, but the government is COMPLETELY responsible for all the risk. Sure, the banks can't abuse that system. This was already tried, they were called greenbacks and the debasement was terrible.
Do yourself a favor, learn about economic history and mechanics. Then memorize a key economic principle, "There is no such thing as a free lunch".
The Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful country on earth relegated to tech support apologist. what a maroon. maybe he is more qualified for this.
"The fools who imposed this system had all the expertise, all the arrogance, all the money, and all the power, and they still couldn’t do it." This is, indeed, an epic failure. How is it possible to spend $500m on a website (first question) and to have it fail monumentally (second question). sheesh.
The Obama administration is an epic failure multiple fronts.
They hate us for our healthcare.gov website.
"How is it possible to spend $500m on a website (first question) and to have it fail monumentally (second question)."
by having a NO BID contract awarded to a company with Michelle O's college roommate as an AA Senior president which also happens to employ Jarrett's daughter and husband. Affirmative Action in ACTION.
Don't question it, razzzizt
How is it possible for an electorate of incompetents to differentiate and select the most intelligent to make their Central Plans? Is intelligence additive? If you combine Jarret, Biden and Obama is their combined IQ higher than any of them? Who chooses the most intelligent Central Planners? The competence of government is the delusion of fools.
The beauty of government lies in the collectivist's genes.
The plan that is not working is the one where 99% of those willing and able to sign-up with ObamaScare have pre-existing conditions, the cures and procedures for which look to me to be huge upcoming insurance losses, hiding in plain sight.
Another plan that isn't working is getting NSA back up and spying after 2 days. Oh wait, it's the weekend:
http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/nsa.gov
No matter how suckassery the government does something, they know that you have to deal with them and only them. That's why monopolies suck donkey dick.
Who will build the roads?
I don't know, but anything has to be better than the shit the governmetn builds.
I can shed some light on an aspect of this because of my former occupation. I was a materials engineer for an asphalt heavy highway contractor for a couple of years. Asphalt is fickle. Payment is generally based on QC/QA, and changes to the mix design are made on the fly as one or more parameters fall out of the tolerance range. Imagine juggling balls that are all connected by rubber bands, and you'll get the idea. Most of the roads in the US have a projected service life of 25 years, so the sub-base receives little attention compared to what Germany would design for (50+year service life). Also, the pavement thickness is far less as a consequence as well. Just to give you an idea of what a residential street would cost in my locale, assume a 5-in asphalt pavement depth, 24-Ft wide street with concrete curb and gutter was about $125 per linear foot. That was a couple of years ago, so the price will most likely be within 15% on the high side.
Back to your question regarding roads, and who will pay for them. If the individual is expected to foot the bill, you'd see a whole lot of gravel roads, and possibly chip seal roads in uppity neighborhoods.
Private road companies, like telephone companies, would put in the infrastructure and charge for use, like telephone companies do.
Government roads may be good enough for government, but probably not for a private company investing its own money.
You put 5 INCHES of asphalt and get that crap performance in the US???
Ignoring the subbase and subgrade would be an understatement.
With a stabilized subbase we can get European quality roads with under 2 inches of Asphalt, the oldest installations with the chemicals I am referring to on commercial roadways are only 10+yrs but they haven't required any maintenance yet.
We looked at the US a while back and instead of the NTPEP approval route looked at certain key States that had sizable markets didn't have the slow approval timeline associated with the interstate bureaucracy - but the approval red tape there still wasn't worth the effort and expense (it's also kind of insulting when neither redneck nor eurotrash states will accept European environmental certifications, and can barely decipher a European MSDS in English).
Build it right the first time, it the upfront cost is negligible and the cost savings over the useful life are huge.
Hey, I'm with you. A good, stabilized sub-base is vital. A common cross section I've recently seen on an interstate is 8-in CKD stabilized sub grade, 6-in asphalt (maybe 8-in), then 1-ft thick reinforced PC pavement. This is a major arterial interstate and the ESAL count is very easily 100-M+. The vast majority of all pavement failure I see is sub-base failure related.
I am a strong advocate of geogrid and compacted aggregate base. I witnessed a site constructed on a swamp, where I was concerned we'd lose a dozer in the quicksand. We laid out a roll of geogrid, put in 1-ft of 1-1/2-in aggregate base, compacted it as best we could, then put in two additional layers of the same, and achieved a 95% compaction rate. This is now holding up a 20-ft tall, 1.5-ft thick, 165-ft long wall with less than 1-in of settlement in 3 years. The sub base is submerged as well. The spread footing is about 25-ft wide total, and 3-ft thick.
The 2-in asphalt you mentioned sounds like an SMA (Stone Matrix Asphalt) application(wear surface) which are uncommon around here. Very few local contractors would know how, or even want to use the binder. Not to mention setting, and maintaining a roller pattern with road crew personnel (wage competitors with McDonalds) is a perrenial challenge.
Swamps really are a quagmire- people want to live in them and build on them (due to their proximity to certain desirable geographic features), but they don't want to pay for it, and so they create pressure to cut costs and corners in all the wrong places. If a geotechnical sub doesn't sample a large enough area at a frequent enough interval (particularly in swamp)- then the structural engineering is by definition wrong, even if the construction is executed per spec.
A functioning Society should at least attempt to address the basic issue of the consequences of interdependency in a complex system. However, what society actually promotes is "Me, Me, Me" and "it's the other/next guy's problem" - which doesn't hold water once your geotechnical contractor or healthcare website designer takes up the practice.
But when everyone actually does their job correctly- your wall isn't going anywhere.
How can you say the plan isn't working? Chris Hedges called for "pitchforks." Russell Brand calls for "revolution." Even Martha Stewart is rumored to be bringing the cupcakes. What more do you want? We even have an Uber whip for your ride-share to "The Square." Let the revolting begin. Chase FREEDOM cards accepted.
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=18876
Obamacare could not fail as badly as it has unless it was deliberately being designed to fail that badly. Nobody can understand what the government of the USA is really doing unless they go through the processes of thinking about how both the events on 9/11/2001, and the financial crises in 2008, were deliberately designed to happen, as INSIDE JOBS, within a global agenda. The people who are making profit from killing off the American Democratic Republic know what they are doing, and they are getting away with that because the majority of Americans do not.
"Health Care" is something like 17% of the economy, headed towards maybe 20% ... However, it is NOT "Health Care!" It is actually a profit from disease system, which was put in place during the past Century or so by the banksters and their buddies, through the same means as they captured control over the government generally. In particular, foundations funded by the most wealthy people were systematically able to use their ability to fund medical schools, and medical journals, as well as to lobby and fund politicians, to give every possible legal advantage to the dominant profit from disease form of medicine. That did not happen by accident. Of course, it was rationalized by fraudulent "science" pretending to be rational, while actually rationalizing deliberately ignorance towards the basic sciences that should have been applied to understand a better health care system. A Century ago, various forms of alternative medicine were on a more even footing. Today, the dominant monopolizing form of "medicine," which is the profit from disease system, has every legal advantage to advance itself, while suppressing all the other alternatives. That set of problems goes as deep as one wishes to go down that rabbit hole!
Medicine operates inside the money system, which operates inside the murder system. Since the success of the murder system depends on the maximum deceits, and the success of the money system depends upon the maximum frauds, OF COURSE, American medical systems are extremely deceitful and fraudulent. (They also work with the profit from junk food system, to make more privatized profits overall, while undermining the health of the population as a whole.) Medicine SHOULD primarily be understood and operated within the context of human ecology. However, the reality of our human ecology has been that the central features of that were its death controls, which evolved through the history of warfare, to become murder systems operated through the maximum possible deceits. Upon that basis was later built the monetary systems, which operate on the basis of the maximum possible frauds.
Those are the deeper reasons WHY the murder & money events on 9/11, and in 2008, were INSIDE JOBS! Similarly, Obamacare is not such a total disaster due to mere incompetence. To think that is a silly and superficial way to understand what is really going on! Tragically, most of those who do slightly wake up to the deeper truths almost never go all the way through understanding them. Instead, we typically have a range of reactionary revolutionaries, who offer good analysis of the historical realities and social facts, up to a point, but then collapse back to "solutions" based on those reactionaries preferred sets of false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals. The issue is that it is impossible to have good medicine which does not operate within the context of understanding the evolutionary ecology of energy systems. However, since human civilizations have actually been the development of systems based on successful deceits, and frauds, so too, that is the nature of our currently CRAZY medical systems. Those who were the most successful at being deceitful and fraudulent in the past dominate the established murder/money systems, and thereby also dominate the established medical systems.
Since almost nobody who begins to understand that then proceeds deeper, to propose better death controls, there are never any good solutions emerging, but only more reactionary revolutions, promoting impossible ideals that continue to backfire badly, and make the opposite happen more in the real world. Our medical systems are being operated by the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites that money can buy. Of course, they are able to use their money and power to lobby politicians, to put together their kind of hodge-podge of thousands of pages of complicated bullshit, in the totally misnamed "Affordable Care," which has been revealed to be the apparently incompetent Obamacare.
Of course, I am also aware that writing this kind of comment is practically useless, since the vast majority of Americans do not want to understand this perspective. (Nor do even many of the people who read Zero Hedge, who are much less still believing in the biggest bullies' bullshit than the average American.) The established systems have every advantage to continue to drive through their overall agenda, which includes deliberately destroying the American Democratic Republic. Too bad, so sad. ... As many comments falsely asserted above, it is not the shallow view of government which is to blame, but rather the deeper perspective upon the reality of the shadow government, which has taken effective control over the government of the USA through the persistent and systematic application of the methods of organized crime, mainly through the funding of the political processes, in the forms of the bribery, intimidation, and assassination of politicians, along with buying up control and influence over the mass media and school systems.
When one states that "The Plan Is Not Working," one should ask WHICH PLAN? The plan promoted by the puppet politicians to the muppets is apparently not working. However, the covert plans of the global shadow governments to make tons of profit from killing the American Democratic Republic is working very well! I would suggest that less than 10% of Americans understand that. I would suggest that much less than 1% of that 10% are any more realistic about what good solutions must be, rather than what impossible ideals they promote as their kinds of old-fashioned, bogus, "solutions" to these problems. Deeper and deeper levels of understanding, that put the practice of medicine inside the context of the evolutionary ecology of the combined money/murder systems, arrive at the point where the ONLY good solutions which are realistic are to recommend better organized crime, which operates better death controls, to back up better debt controls. Since I doubt that even 0.001% of Americans understand that, nor want to understand that, I expect that phenomena like Obamacare will continue to spin apparently out of control ...
This is the result you get when you ram down some convoluted disconnected bill that, not only did it's proponents not understand, but they hadn't even bothered reading it before voting on it and passing it. The passing of it was the important part, not the understanding, the logic, the common sense of it. Oh those annoying little details would be addressed at some later date.
Think of a retarded hungry snake eating a bowling ball. He got what he thought he wanted, only after he swallows it does he realize it's going to be the thing that chokes him to death.
LOL, good analogy, notadouche:
"retarded hungry snake eating a bowling ball."
Final failure from too much success.
Perfect plan to take down the present government and install a fascist government.
The masses already agree.
True believers will be used by the "leaders" in their quest for a better life.
"The problem is that government is not the best means to do anything well."
Nonsense. No one can fuck shit up as good as government. No one
"Just keep your government hands off my Medicare!"
There is a growing sentiment that the failure of Obamacare is a planned event rather than an epic fiasco of colossal incompetence.
The Obama supporters have become like the Britney Spears guy - "Leave Obama alone!" No matter what they see Obama do, no matter how huge the MOUNTAIN of evidence to how bad this president and his awful Marxist policies are, they come running out with tears streaming down their face demanding we just... look the other way.
Because... Bush. Or something.
Tyler did a good job on the ZeroHedge website,let's recommend him for the job.A cool 2 billion could come in handy.
Another stupid ZH analogy. Comparing Obama to Stalin is like the people who compared him to Hitler. Give me a fucking break. I know, I'm going to get a million down arrows cause everybody hates Obama and wants to think of him as Hitler andStalin rolled up into one, but get a life, folks.
Pretty sure he signed off on "a law" that makes not buying a service, from a private company, a punishable offense to the state.
By calling it a tax/fine/penalty collected by the state.
What do you call Obama?
A Marxist
Lighten up, nobody thinks he is Stalin or Hitler, but he has had some (self-described) Maoists as friends or advisors and has adopted some policies that Hitler and Stalin would have admired. And he has killed a lot of innocent civilians and caused a lot more to die indirectly as a result of his wars of choice. Like BushHitler, Obama has proven himself to be a thoroughly corrupt crony-corporatist, so fair game, call him what you like.
Not everyone respects or admires or trusts Mr Obama.
Wrong. You are now at 3 red arrows. It's late... give it time. I'm sure you'll work that million-mark. Keep trying. You will eventually rise to the success you crave.
Edit: Inbetween is pain is a member for over 3 years yet only has about 8 posts in all that time. I didn't actually count them but it is quite apparent this is a shill account.
Don't forget that Hitler was elected democratically. He was no more evil than Obama before he started WWII. This idea that the evil leaders of the past were somehow different does not make sense. Hitler started of like Obama: a demagogue dividing the nation and accumulating more power in the process.
The challenge is to recognize evil before it manifests.
"The challenge is to recognize evil before it manifests."
Here is an interview you may enjoy.
http://www.davejanda.com/guests/dr-jim-garrow/sunday-october-20-2013 Skip to 3:30 or so, then be prepared to hear some shocking stuff.
The afirmative action president in action!
He's not just a bad president, he's an evil man.
There is nothing nmore evil than a person who beats you for pleasure while telling you its for your own good.
When the reporters are subjected to the ACA marketplace they might finally ask real questions and relearn to f-ing heckle BS answers.
I see the Left's fascists have infiltrated the site. That means ZeroHedge is working!
It is funny how the morons that compare the U.S. health system to other developed countries "universal" health care never mention the differences in demographics. Wonder why?
Because that objection does not make sense except to free market zealots? Economies of scale and bargaining power would help to health care more efficient and cheaper, as it is in the rest of the developed world.
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/saunders/article/Lies-the-Dems-tell-themselves-4926880.php
Even flaky SF newspaper gets it.
I bet if we shoot a few peasants, ObamaRomneyCare would start working just fine.
Any focus on the failures of ObamaCare web sites is misplaced. Even if signups when smoothly and 100% got their coverage, the system itself is corrupt, economically disastrous and morally corrosive. It is the most grave threat to the very meaning of being “American” since the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, the income tax and the Great Society.
But don’t take it from me. Put socialism in another context, on another continent, with a different people, and see its effect on them.
Václav Havel was a playwright, essayist and a poet. He was also the last President of Czechoslovakia before it was broken up into the Czeck Republic and Slovaka.
He lived under suffocating socialism. He found it to have a horribly corrosive effect on humanity. In his famous essay, Power of the Powerless, he wrote:
“...[socialism] touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological
gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with
hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government;
the working class is enslaved in the name of the work ing class; the
complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate
liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available;
the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and
the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the
repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial
influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free
expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become
the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most
scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance.
Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything.
It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the
future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent
and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It
pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to
pretend nothing.
“Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave
as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get
along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they
must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them
to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact,
individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the
system.”
from:
http://bit.ly/4bqmRu
Obama mispeaks about Connecticut plan results- most of young people(65%) were on medicaid and didn't need to buy from exchange-
http://www.ctmirror.org/story/2013/10/22/obama-misspeaks-about-connectic...
HealthCare.gov sat on a wall
HealthCare.gov had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Could not put HealthCare.gov together again.
Everyone would admit that filing IRS taxes is more complicted than signing somneone up for health insurance.
The IRS allows any taxpayer to use their online system to fill out their forms and file their return.
But ObamaTax can't take down my name, address, birthdate, and SS#, family members birthdates, and give me the coverage options and a price????????
Couldn't you get a ten websites built like that for under a million dollars?
But Obama couldn't get one website with dedicated servers done for over $600 million??
Just imagine that instead of Obama health care it was Obama national funeral care. The government would find some way to mess up funerals.(respectfully excepting the military).
we are confronted now, with evil as banality.
i checked the pricing on the covered california marketplace for my zip code in LA. the price for the mrs and me at my current income is more than twice as much ($15k) for less coverage and same co-pay than I pay here in Japan on the single payer national health program.
also, there is no limitation on network participation.
also, there is no need to acquire travel insurance to cover me if i travel outside of the zone defined for that LA county zone. coverage in japan is national, of course.
fortunately, as i do not live in the usa, i have a legal exclusion.
since the ACA coverage is not available to illegal immigrants, i would suggest that americans consider renouncing citizenship but stay where you are.
If they really wanted the site to work they would have awarded their "no-bid" contract to the best, not some no-name but politically connected Canadian company. Obama's campaign IT was done by the best - Google and Facebook - and it worked flawlessly. This says it all right here.
Start spreading the news... http://shutupnsing.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/the-autumn-of-surrender-in-new-york/