Obama's Legacy

A quick mind is a terrible thing to waste

They were career soldiers, most of us can't even plant a vegetable.

I must admit that I never tried planting a vegetable, however I do posses some other usefull skills

I understand this impulse, but I think this exacerbates the problem. When government rushes in to fill those gaps, it solidifies them.

And yet all of these things existed long before government was funding them, and virtually all the things government doesn't try to guarantee remain affordable. Why is that?

Note well: we don't disagree that these things should be cheaper. We disagree about how to make them cheaper.

It is? Did nothing get done before modern, massive governments?

That's exactly the point I'm making! The important part of what you just said isn't that people are complaining, it's who they complain to. People complain to the government because they've come to expect the government to provide solutions. That process is self-perpetuating and needs to be reversed.

At some point somebody (FDR, for example) came in and told them government could fix their problems if they'd simply give them more power, and they said yes. And that was the start of an addiction. An addiction of expecting government to save us, even from ourselves. And it becomes self-fulfilling, because the more we put the onus on government, the less we take it upon ourselves to make things better.

I agree with your point, but the problem is that the transition time between relying on the government and being able to create our own solution could be horrible. If we stop, all of a sudden, the government help how can we survive since we rely on them so much? And when you say that we agree about the fact that these service should be cheaper, but not how I don't understand how you want them to be cheaper.

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I do not speak english perfectly so expect some mistakes here and there in my messages

Well, I think the word "survive" makes the situation sound a lot more dire than it is. But my answer is twofold: first, that this transition would be swifter than imagined. Advocates of big government often worry about transitional periods (nevermind that this worry is, conveniently, a way for government to maintain its size), but these worries are often overblown. They worried about the sudden shift in the labor market after WWII, but the transition was efficient and seamless. That, after all, is capitalism's great strength: its adaptability. It's only when we gum up the works that the transitions are slow and painful.

The second response is that, however difficult it is, it can't be worse for the poor than what happens over time when the process continues unchecked. It may feel charitable to try to guarantee base levels of services now, but what of the poor in the next generation, who don't see the same growth in overall wealth (which has always been the greatest force in improving the standard of living in all income groups) because of these programs? Surely they matter just as much. It is a morally uncomfortable truth, but one that we all have to grapple with.

By reducing government interference. Capitalism drives prices lower in every industry in which we allow it to operate, so allow it to operate in these places.

I realize that, for lots of people, it's difficult to think of something becoming cheaper with a singular entity (like the government) explicitly causing it to happen, but it happens all the time in other markets without any one person overseeing things. It's called Emergent Order, and it's a beautiful, important economic concept. There's a famous essay written in 1958 called [u]I, Pencil[/i] about the way capitalism causes independent actors to come together to produce things that no one person oversaw. Here's a video based on it that you might find interesting:

I used survive because of my lack of knowledge of the English language I agree that it is a little dramatic haha. As for the rest of the message I guess I'd have to admit that I was wrong and that you're right, what you're saying is making complete sense. It's just that when I see huge corporations being richer and richer by selling products 10 times more expensive then what it's worth and in order to make that product they are exploiting people in other countries it makes me sick (maybe I'm exaggerating with my phrasing, but I don't know what other words I can use haha) I just wish these rich people would pay, but I guess that it's more idealistic than realist and that it's not every rich people that is like that and that the environment in which I live in (In Quebec it's really popular to despise rich people). influenced my opinion toward them.



And thanks for the video it was really good !

No problem.

Well, that's all very big of you to say, and I admire your open-mindedness.

In response to the idea of selling products for more than they cost, I can definitely understand that as an initial reaction, but when we examine the entire process of product creation I think it makes a lot more sense. An extreme example is the pharmaceutical industry; people get upset that they'll sell a single pill for $5 when it costs them 5 cents to create, but what they forget is that it only costs them 5 cents to create it once they've already discovered the chemical formula. Or, as is sometimes said, "the second pill costs 5 cents...the first pill costs $100 million."

A product can't be sold for just above what it literally costs to produce: it has to be sold for enough to cover all the work of formulating the idea and making it reality, as well as shipping it to convenient locations. And it also has to compensate the business owner for the mere risk of making a product at all. For every product you see on the shelf there are literally hundreds that went out of business. If people can't sell products at a significant markup, they have no incentive to take the risk in the first place given that the overwhelming majority of businesses fail. This is one of the reasons people want to lower corporate taxes: it makes this process easier and encourages more people to try things, because it's so inherently risky and usually doesn't work.

Glad you like it! Free market economics has a real beauty to it, in the way things of value are constantly emerging even though no one person is in charge of making it happen. It feels weird to trust a process that nobody's in charge of, but the results speak for themselves.

I've always been fascinated with the discussion 'Government VS Free Market'.

I've always struggled with my own personal economic ideals, which are leaning towards the conservative (right-wing) (definitely here in Belgium) and the social condition of the underprivileged under this free market system.

- Socially (in terms of abortion, gay marriage, etc.) I am more liberal-sided. -

Both systems have their pros and cons, as there are many examples of government failure, as well as market failure. I believe that in an economy with many strict rules concerning prices, subsidies and taxes, in other words an economy completely alienated from the free market system, a certain kind of government-ruled redistribution system might work on paper. I think we can all agree, though, that the USA does not fit the bill.

The above described economy would also not be an economy that I want to be part of, as I am very fond of my individual freedom. I want to be able to spend my money the way I want and I am more a fan of the idea of charity by choice in stead of property redistribution that is forced by a government.

To go back to the topic of a health care system in the USA:

First of all the total expenditure of the american population to health care in an Obamacare system will almost certainly rise as more people will make use of it (even if it's not really necessary) as it will all seem cheaper and because people will want to get the most out of the taxes they pay for it.

After this development, the government will try to make the system cheaper by artificially lowering the incomes of doctors, the profits of private hospitals, research expenses, etcetera, so they don't have to raise the taxes for the population (because obviously that would make the government less popular, certainly in the USA where high taxes are often a taboo).

Because all of that, the quality of the health care system in the USA will automatically decline (as the system will relatively receive less money and everyone knows that normally speaking more money=better quality) and the whole system will relatively be less efficient (as the total expenditure of the population rised and the total quality declined).

The only virtue that Obamacare would really accomplish, is that 'poor' people will have more acces to health care.

I know that I oversimplified argumentations, but that was intentional as I want everyone to understand the fact that government failure shouldn't be underestimated (certainly not when a new field of government intervention is started). I'm a college student in Applied Economics and I could write down a few chapters of my course on government economics, but I don't think many of you would want to read that stuff.

So it all comes down to one huge choice for me.
Does a society want to lose in quality and efficiency (as a side effect) by using the force of a government to help the underprivileged or can a society help the underprivileged by itself (freely), so there won't be these adverse economic side effects?

I am still a believer and I think we should try for the second option, but I will admit that the (often) egocentric nature of people in general doesn't make that option an evident one.

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Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019

Very clarifying stuff, Cob. One thing I'd like to respond to:

I think this is certainly a question, but let me propose a slight variation: does a society think the needy will be better served by government programs that reduce overall quality and efficiency, or will they be better served by encouraging growth in general? The question you propose is a good one, but it's ultimately more about relative wealth. Which improves the life of the poor more: being given a bit at the expense of the system overall, or living in a thriving economy that provides more opportunities and is constantly revising even the definition of the word "poor" upwards?

We will always have poor people in the sense that some people will always make much more than others. But that doesn't mean we can't continue to grow so that being "poor" includes more and more comforts, which has been the case throughout history. That's a more objective, long-term view of poverty, and I think it's one that will probably produce more results. This comes into particularly sharp focus if we ask ourselves how to improve life for the totality of the poor, including those yet to be. When we do that, the answer is abundantly clear. It is only by deciding that the existing poor must receive preference over those who will be poor in the future that this even becomes a question, and even then I think the evidence points in the same direction.

Anyway, great post.

Do/did you do economics Cobpyth? I consider myself left-wing on most things, although I think your post and Yoda's prove that it's not so black and white and you have to look at costs and such in a number of different ways than the ones often simply presented.

Personally I find it interesting to hear about America through threads such as these, mainly because of the lack of news/coverage really that you get over here regarding the country, and Obama. Maybe it's because I am in university and I am lacking daily news (I used to watch the news everyday on TV), but I feel like I am missing out on a lot of what's going on, I honestly never realised that the US opinion on Obama was so bad.

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@Yoda:

The free market system will always provide more general growth in the long run, but the reason why communism and socialism became so popular is because of Marx' statement that the free system will only cause more inequality between the rich and the poor and according to him, this would inevitably lead to a proletarian revolution. He used several arguments for this statement, like for example the past (French Revolution).

It is this 'fear' that is, in my opinion, still the basis of socialism and its ramifications and it is unconciously still the main argument for left wing parties to force a more flattened society by using the government. In other words, they sacrifice a part of the general growth to protect themselves and the future generations from potential 'riots', because of excessive inequality, so to speak.

It is noteworthy though that experience learned us that this exacerbation of inequality is merely a myth and that, unlike Marx' statement, in a free system with more general growth, it is actually the middle class that becomes wider (which also makes more sense if we think about all the job creation and freedom in that kind of system).

When I learned this I concluded that a free system, like you said, doesn't necessarily mean an anti-social system. With enough charity we will be able to help the 'very poor' and the lower class will also be able to profit from the general growth in quality and their life standards will automatically become higher, just like you said.
Sure, there will still be people that are earning millions or billions of dollars, while others are only making twenty thousand dollars a year, but I personally don't see why people would ever want to change that. What's more beautiful than being able to dream about such wealth? Is there a better motivation to work harder and try to make something of yourself? I personally think it's even a little bit 'soured' to be against people that 'made it'. They should be seen as symbols of hope, instead of targets of frustration.

In other words, I agree with your way of thinking.

@Daniel M: Yes, i'm currently in my third bachelor degree and after that I'm probably going for a master degree in marketing.

Aye. And I think Thatcher found the perfect rejoinder:



It sounds like a clever jab, but it's completely true: to care more about inequality than overall wealth is to prefer a society where everyone is worse off in order to make them more equal.

Yes, and I find this to be a very interesting, telling argument. Some liberals I talk to about this, when asked why inequality is an inherent problem, talk purely in these terms: people won't stand for it! People don't like it! To which I say: no kidding, you're trying to gin up resentment about it. You're creating the reason it's a problem by calling it a problem. It's completely circular.

It may be true that people are too envious to tolerate income inequality, whether it's fairly gained or not, and even whether it benefits them or not. But that's a human failing, first and foremost.

4 pages of the same old stuff about politics on this site? No thanks.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

He is certainly the most pro-abortion president in U.S history. He'll be remembered alongside Hitler and Stalin.

Two of those pages (including this last one) haven't really been the "same old stuff." There's been a lot of fairly high-minded discussion about economic principles.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I don't think there is such a thing as pro-abortion..

Nor is there such a thing as being anti-choice, but I hear that one tossed around a lot these days.

Anyway, there are certainly pro-choice people for whom the description is fairly applicable. I've talked to them. For example, people who dislike it when someone is talked out of having an abortion. There are quite a few people in this debate that feel abortion should not only be legal, but completely free of any influence that might cause people to rethink the decision to have one. That's pretty hard to distinguish from being "pro abortion."

And whether you find abortion to be an abomination or a legal necessity, the fact of the matter is a lot of people have an interest (sometimes a direct financial interest) in it continuing for reasons that have nothing to do with personal autonomy.

abortions for all!