John Stossel presents a documentary report showing why the laws of marginal utility, supply, and demand still hold for healthcare just like any other scarce resource or good. If the price of healthcare is free, demand becomes inelastic, you get shortages, and healthy people are forced to subsidize the unhealthy. Also, as a minor drawback to universal healthcare, people die waiting in line.
Jun 5, 2009
"I am not a spokesperson for anything but liberty"
NJ campaign for liberty member, Angel Robinson, does a fantastic job promoting HR 1207 and CFL on the Glenn Beck show. Her last lines toward the end are especially great.
Jun 4, 2009
Jim Rogers: Dow 30,000!
That's right. None other than Jim Rogers, believes that the Dow might go to 30,000 in the near future! As a side note, he thinks this will happen because of the looming dollar crisis. Read the rest and watch the interview from CNBC. Big point: even if you think the economy is going down the tubes over the next dozen years, do not short the stock market!
"I’m afraid they're printing so much money that stocks could go to 20,000 or 30,000," Rogers said. "Of course it would be in worthless money, but it could happen and you could lose a lot of money being short."
4 Step Plan to Free Market Healthcare
My favorite article regarding healthcare is posted over at lewrockwell.com today. Hans Herman Hoppe outlines the 4 necessary steps that we must take to solve the healthcare problems we face today. Reading the article really highlights the fact that we have nothing close to a free market system in healthcare. We have a system of inflated pricing and inefficiencies due to government subsidy and over-regulation. Here are the four steps that Hoppe proposes to solve the problem. Of course, these solution are not politically viable but he is right nonetheless.
1. Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health care personnel.
2. Eliminate all government restrictions on the production and sale of pharmaceutical products and medical devices. This means no more Food and Drug Administration, which presently hinders innovation and increases costs.
3. Deregulate the health insurance industry. Private enterprise can offer insurance against events over whose outcome the insured possesses no control. One cannot insure oneself against suicide or bankruptcy, for example, because it is in one's own hands to bring these events about.
4. Eliminate all subsidies to the sick or unhealthy. Subsidies create more of whatever is being subsidized.
Jun 3, 2009
Amity Shlaes Discusses the Relevance of Atlas Shrugged
Shlaes writes about the new found interest in Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged and how it relates to today's federal government. Article is from Bloomberg.
The hard-money monologue of Rand’s copper king, Francisco d’Anconia, used to sound weird. Who even thought about gold in the early 1990s? Now, D’Anconia’s lecture on the unreliable dollar sounds like it could have been scripted by Zhou Xiaochuan, or some other furious Chinese central banker:
“Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’”
Jun 2, 2009
Chinese Students Laugh at Geithner
The Chinese are very intelligent. They know that it is laughable to think that we are going to make good on the debts we owe them. That's why they are stocking up on gold and buying less of our debt. Just yesterday, Peking University students literally laughed at Geithner when he told them our assets are safe!
"Chinese assets are very safe," Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting scepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.
Read the rest of the story from Reuters.
Jun 1, 2009
Campaign for Liberty Has a Good Showing at Virginia GOP Convention
Those are dozens of Gadsden flags out in full force from the floor of the convention. I'm hoping the people holding them know the meaning behind the flag. I attended this convention last year with extreme disappointment over the neocon-war rhetoric. It was so incredibly painful to listen to politicians talk statist nonsense for 3 hours straight that I decided not to attend this year. But these pictures make me think twice about attending next year if I can be among friends at CFL. You can read more about the convention over at the CFL website. We are making progress. That is for sure.
May 31, 2009
05/17 - 05/31 Gun Self-Defense Stories
Rarely do you hear these stories in the mainstream media. Typically, we only get news of tragic events where the criminals win (coincidentally it's usually against unarmed victims). The anti-gun lobby then uses this as a reason to strip us of our 2nd amendment rights. The truth is that guns save lives and property from criminals every day in this country. Below is a short list of a few of these stories from the past couple weeks.
Columbia, SC - thief shot by homeowner
San Antonio, TX - thief shot by business owner
Oklahoma City, OK - thief killed by homeowner
Oklahoma City, OK - pharmacist shoots armed robbers and drug dealers saving 3 lives
Macon, GA - thief shot by employee
Berkeley Heights, NJ - resident shoots intruder (didn't know they had guns in NJ)
Tampa, FL - woman punches armed car-jacker in the face with her gun
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
