John Mackey on health care reform
John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, had a great column in the Wall Street Journal a couple days ago:
The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
Mackey lists eight things government should do to reform health care that don't involve increasing government control, power, and spending (including a couple I've mentioned before).
The only one I might take issue with is his recommendation to "make costs transparent." I'm not sure what he means by that. It gives the impression of some kind of government regulatory agency imposing transparency as is done in some other sectors. That, of course, I would argue strongly against as government aggression. Of course, he may simply mean that government should halt particular actions it currently takes that actually prevent cost transparency, in which case I heartily support the idea.
Also (and this may just be an issue of imprecise wording), he mentions that the "right" to health care "has never existed in America." This is true, of course, but logically speaking, there can be no such thing as a "right" to a certain level of health care, regardless of your particular country. As I point out regularly, a right to a certain level of health care (or housing, or wage rate) would imply the necessity of Peter robbing Paul to pay for it, and that violates the fundamental right of all sentient beings--the right not to have force initiated against your person or property. And when that fundamental right is not recognized, we're no better than animals fighting over scarce resources under a regime of "might makes right."
At any rate, a generally outstanding piece by the wise Mr. Mackey.
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Double standard?
The recent USA Today opinion column by Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi reeks of double standards.
So people who are opposed to any kind of socialist health coverage reforms who attend town hall meetings to express their opposition to their Congressthings are "un-American." But when people who were disgusted with Bush and GOP policies (like starting wars) protested quite loudly for a good 8 years, it was deemed (correctly, for the most part) by Democratic politicians to be an exercise in the right to free speech.
The charge that these health care protesters are being 'put up to it' by the Republican and Libertarian parties is both hypocritical and inaccurate.
First, the anti-Bush protesters were just as much put up to it as these anti-Obama protesters are; that is, they were already strongly opposed to the Bush policies and the Democratic (and sometimes Libertarian) Party helped organize and focus their opposition in the form of protests and speaking out at events held by Republican politicians. What's the difference?
Second, there is nothing at all wrong with an organization such as a political party organizing its members to 'ambush' politicians by showing up in force and demanding they answer tough questions. That's one of the things for which political parties exist. As economies progress, the division of labor results in increasing specialization in order to use resources ever more efficiently, thus creating wealth. Some people (political party staff) specialize in identifying opportunities to protest a policy they disagree with and organizing people who agree with them to get out there and raise hell. So people who genuinely disagree with a policy strongly enough to protest against it but don't have time to identify opportunities and organize their friends simply join political parties or interest groups that e-mail them the latest plans for grassroots protests and then head on over after work.
Sounds like Steny and Nancy are just a little too thin-skinned for a taste of what their own people have been doing to the GOP for the past 8 years.
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A lesson from two depressions
After my post yesterday about Harry Reid's comments, I received some interesting feedback in one particular forum where I linked the post. A couple of people appeared to be amused that I considered the New Deal and the government aggression leading up to it to be destructive. The following was basically my response to them (and it seemed like it would make a good stand-alone blog post):
The Great Depression was the result of the bursting of a government-created inflationary bubble (sound familiar?) combined with government policies pushed first by Republican Herbert Hoover and then by Democrat FDR that prevented prices and wages from falling to their natural market level and prevented unsound investments from being liquidated, which, while being temporarily painful, would have initiated a rapid readjustment of supply and demand and a return to productivity and employment--all without the government programs that plunged the country into permanent (seemingly) socialism and monetary manipulation.
Note that when the same basic initial conditions occurred in the early 1840s, the government did nothing to prevent the necessary price adjustments, and the period 1839-43 experienced a decrease in investment but an INCREASE in real consumption of 21% and in real GNP by 16%, whereas the period 1929-33 (with government controls interfering with the operation of the market) saw a DECREASE in real consumption of 19% and of real GNP by 30% (as discussed by Murray Rothbard in A History of Money and Banking in the United States).
So, the earlier depression came to a swift end when the government did not attempt to 'soften the blow' or prop up the house of cards, but the Great Depression dragged on for years and caused incredible ruin when the government tried to work its Keynesian voodoo on the economy. Sadly, we appear today to be following the path of oppression and ruin rather than freedom and rebuilding.
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Reid inadvertently states case for abolishing government
Wow. I did a double-take on this one. Senator Harry Reid is claiming that this Congress has "passed more serious, substantive laws than any Congress since President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term." Harry, Harry, Harry...
FDR's first term (notwithstanding the incredible damage done by the preceding Hoover administration) did immense damage to our country, both deepening and prolonging what should have been a short-lived depression and laying the groundwork for the quasi-socialist authoritarian state the United States has become.
Harry Reid has just admitted (and is apparently proud of) the fact that our current Congress, in conjunction with the FDR-like authoritarian socialist Barack Obama, is on its way to repeat the catastrophic mistakes of that group of irrational miscreants from the 1930s.
Harry, thank you for doing my job for me by making clear the need to abolish the government before it can destroy any more lives.
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Libertarian running for Durham City Council
Matt Drew, a resident of Durham and a local Libertarian Party activist, is running for Durham City Council. He's looking to shake up the way things are done:
The inevitable question that gets asked is, why should I vote for you? And my answer is: Chickens. The debate over urban chickens in Durham stretched over months, three public hearings, and finally ended in February 2009 with a 7-0 vote in favor of allowing them. Now, I support people having chickens on their property – as a Libertarian, how could I do otherwise? The problem is not with the issue. The problem is the default.
The Durham City Council is set to “default deny”: that which is not expressly permitted is forbidden. In computer security this is a good thing; in a government, it’s a bad thing. It took incredible effort to convince the Council to permit people to do something, as if it is the Council’s place to decide what peaceful people do in their homes and on their land without disturbing their neighbors. And it took months to make what should have been a simple decision. Are these people hurting anyone? Are they stealing from anyone? Are they causing anyone suffering? Then why are we even talking about this? It should have been a done deal weeks before. Citizens shouldn’t have to prove why it’s a good idea to have chickens; the Council should have to prove why they should be banned. The debate occurred in entirely the wrong direction, and as a result took far too long and wasted an enormous amount of time and energy.
I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon working the LP booth with Matt at the Eno River Festival a few weeks ago. He may not be a radical market anarchist like me (I would probably run on a platform calling for the city council to abolish itself or something), but he's a great guy and a genuine libertarian. If you're one of my local Durhamite readers, check him out, and consider voting for him and mentioning him to your friends.
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