Turquoise wrote:
But prices aren't the issue in a socialized system. Look at Canada for a good example. Your logic somewhat applies to an out of pocket system, but this is basically part of why it shouldn't be out of pocket.
I don't know much about their education system, but if you look at their health care, the quality isn't that great. The
canucks come down here to Montana where I live quite often to get better medical care, but I'll admit again I really don't know much about Canada's education system. I still think the logic of free-market enterprise can fit very well in education.
I would argue a lot of why private colleges are so expensive is because of federal endowments to said colleges. Every year, we spend billions handing out federal money to schools that don't need the money. Harvard alone got $26 billion in endowments in the past year from tax money. The intention of this is investment in research, but more often than not, that money gets hoarded, while tuitions rise.
So, the market principles you're talking about would work better without endowments in place.
Still, when it comes to public schools, socialization is needed. Public schools are usually more reasonable in how they manage costs of things like tuition.
At least we can agree those schools don't deserve government hand-outs. However, I still think schools if they competed with each other like most businesses do, would work to find a better way to educate their students more effectively and at better costs. You assume it wouldn't work because it really hasn't been seen, but that's because it really hasn't been allowed. Home schooled kids consistently out-perform regular students, despite schools having plenty of money to throw towards their students.
Something is wrong here, but whatever reason, I hope we do find a way to provide better education to everyone, not just the rich, that our kids can grow up to be smarter, healthier, better individuals. I'm confident though that privatizing schools will do this.
Well, again, I think that can be temporarily fixed by protectionism. As things currently stand, our tax laws benefit companies that outsource. We can change laws so that it's more beneficial to base your company here, and outsourcing can be penalized via taxes, tariffs, etc.
Taxes really aren't fair to begin with. The government implies it owns all your wealth, but decides how much you keep, even if it is most of it. It still hurts our ability to compete. I'd be in favor of general tax cuts, but back to the OP, we do have an enormous deficit to deal with. However, let's assume we don't have a deficit and don't need to worry about that right now. Penalizing companies for out-sourcing may make them leave that line of business all together. It just doesn't make sense. Why force a company to produce in a country where Unions force the company to overpay their employees and pay for very pricey entitlements? They have to make up for those costs by raising the cost of their product, but if it's too expensive, you'd be foolish to buy it. If they want to compete they won't, so instead they will take a bleeding loss, just exactly what the big three did and look where they are today.
The system abroad needs to change, and it's not going happen through force of law and decree. There is always some unintended consequence, no matter how well intended, government action takes on the market.
JohnG@lt wrote:
You're wasting your time. I've made these same arguments numerous times. It's like talking to lowing.
You're right, it's proving to be futile. Might not be able to convince Dill, but he sure hasn't provided any strong argument of his own. He can re-read my last post to him if he wants a reply, since he skipped most of the points. I admire his tenacity though!
The bailouts (except for GM and AIG) have been repaid. I didn't agree with the bailouts on principle because they just reward stupidity. However, the catastrophe that would've occurred if the bailouts hadn't happened would've made the Great Depression look like a sunny vacation. We're talking the destruction of the entire worlds financial system.
And you're wrong by a lot. We as a people spend far more on a yearly basis on public education than was ever handed over to Wall Street.
Enjoy your move to Canada, if you don't come back within ten years of being economically repressed I'll be shocked.
We don't know for certain if letting those major banks would have resulted in a complete meltdown in the world economy. Certainly letting AIG, Citi, JP Morgan, and everyone else would have created a cascading effect resulting in other banks failing, but to the degree of Armageddon, I'm not so sure anymore. Even the treasury admits they really didn't believe that when they sold us that snake oil. However, what is certain is that there would be massive de-leveraging and debt liquidation that would be tremendously deflationary, but necessary for the system. A severe recession (-10% GDP growth), the very least. It's still going to happen sadly.
Last edited by Phrozenbot (2009-12-29 20:13:21)
