Well, gee whiz.. Sounds like you are talking about the majority of the civilized population of the industrialized world. :D

And politicians too! :D

Michale.....

in my view, your errors are twofold:

But I submit to you that A> Corporations are made up of people and are likely as well-meaning and empathic as you are .... and 2> are not STUPID people.

1. corporations are made up of people whose main concern (if not sole concern) is their own job security and/or career advancement.

2. corporations, like any other institution on earth, are made up of people who, by and large, ARE stupid.

People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.
~terry goodkind

and thanks for your support ;)

Hahahahah. I forgot about that. That's funny!

Because, if we carried your socialized police force to it's logical progression, then the best idea would be to have a central police force for the entire nation with no local forces whatsoever.

Agreed completely.

So taking the best of both worlds, maybe the police leverage national resources - criminal databases, etc, with local units free to control and run how they do things best. Not trying to hammer out all the details, but you get the idea.

This way you could make the best use of shared resources and still meet the needs of the local people best as you mentioned.

As I said, those types of activities are much different than a business where the goal is to serve the customer and make a profit.

And in many if not most of these situations, I'm right there with you. Consumer goods is a great example. Look at how well the socialist model worked - it basically didn't.

You seem to think that corporations are ALL about profits to the exclusion of all else.

Not at all. Seriously.

I'm just arguing that we should look at what works best for particular situations. I think corporations do a helluva lot of good in the right situations.

They realize that while worshiping the bottom line may work in the short-term, it will kill the business in the long-term.

This is an excellent point as well. I wish it were even more true than it is today. Companies used to be much more focused on the long term. Since about the 80s, there's been more of a focus on short term. But this is a discussion for another day.

Good discussion!
-David

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377124/Cameron-Obama-Sarkozy-Libya-We-wont-stop-bombing-Gaddafis-gone.html

Looks like the Libya campaign IS "regime change"...

Not that I really have any problem with that... :D

Michale.....

Well, I was pretty much done anyways...

CW, could you close the BOLD attribute after the LUCIFER'S HAMMER quote? :D

Michale....

First off, let me say that I absolutely LOVED your analogy. It explained things in a manner that I understood and could relate to perfectly.

Kudos.

But I have to say, reading your examples reminded me of a conversation from LUCIFER'S HAMMER....

"That is what is confusing," Pieter said. "Two companies, two different rivals making such fine
equipment. Wasteful."
"Maybe wasteful," Rick Delanty said, "but I can take you into any damn electronics store in the
country and buy one."
"No politics," Johnny Baker warned

Consider a capitalist model for the police force where there are several different police forces competing with each other.

ROBO COP!!!! :D

As I said, a great analogy all the way around.

But, consider this...

Police Forces, Fire Units, etc etc have one goal.. And that goal is NOT to serve the public, but rather to maintain public order and public safety. Sometimes this necessitates ignoring the public GOOD, in order to maintain the public SAFETY, if you get the distinction. Kind of like CW's "destroying the village to save it" analogy above...

So, in the areas where public order is the goal, a centralized way of doing things makes sense.

To a point..

Because, if we carried your socialized police force to it's logical progression, then the best idea would be to have a central police force for the entire nation with no local forces whatsoever..

But THAT, of course, is illogical, as a national police force with centralized would not meet the needs of the local people as well as a local police force would.

You see the point?

But, as I said, those types of activities are much different than a business where the goal is to serve the customer and make a profit. Not necessarily in that order.. :D

In THAT type of business, the market usually takes care of itself. Using your example of insurance companies denying care, as I said... If the insurance company denies care, the customer dies. If the customer dies, then the insurance company loses money. So withholding care doesn't make good business sense..

You seem to think that corporations are ALL about profits to the exclusion of all else..

But I submit to you that A> Corporations are made up of people and are likely as well-meaning and empathic as you are .... and 2> are not STUPID people. They realize that while worshiping the bottom line may work in the short-term, it will kill the business in the long-term. Most of your higher up executive types are, by default, long-term thinkers.. They would have to be or they wouldn't be higher up executive types.

Which isn't to say that they are perfect. I am sure that corporations have their greedy and unscrupulous types, just like any other aspect of daily life... Politics, for example. :D

Great question. I'm going to take it a step further by talking about the kinds of things which I believe would be better run by government. Then, I'll give you some examples.

Since you're an IT guy, I'm going to assume that you're familiar with the history of IT - mainframes, to PCs, to our present state where we're moving to Cloud Computing.

Bear with my analogy for just a second.

Socialism is like a mainframe, right? Centralized, government controlled. Your computer was typically what was called a "dumb terminal" - it was simply a conduit to the mainframe. All the applications resided on the mainframe so the admin determined what you could and could not run.

From a user perspective, incredibly frustrating because the apps you may have wanted to run did not always exist on the mainframe. And convincing the admin to put them on the mainframe could take years.

There was an upside to mainframe computing though. Because it was centrally managed and controlled, it was very easy to administer. You didn't need a large IT staff and you only had to learn one system.

Fast forward to the 80s .... (cue Van Halen's "Panama")

The PC was developed and along with it, the client server model. This model allowed individual departments to run their own software and to deploy it quickly. We'll use this as our model for capitalism.

The benefit were great. No longer was there a central admin lording over his own IT fiefdom. It freed up departments and even individuals to run the programs that they wanted to run and quickly displaced the mainframe.

But there was a cost. The cost was that each application typically required its own server and backend database. And all of these different types of applications required lots of different infrastructure. And suddenly it's a real bitch to support. Why? Because resources were not shared and used in the most efficient manner.

Socialism and capitalism are very similar to these two models. In a centralized model, you're going to use resources most efficiently, but the tradeoff is centralized control. In a capitalism model, you're able to do more of what you want immediately, but the tradeoff is inefficient use of resources.

So the trick is to look for situations where each would work best.

Example 1: The police force.
Consider a capitalist model for the police force where there are several different police forces competing with each other. Each requires their own guns, their own record systems, their own entire infrastructure for supporting the police including cars, jails, etc.

In a socialist model, all of these would be shared by a centralized police force enabling the most efficient use of resources.

Example 2: Health care
Similarly, consider a capitalist model for health care. You're going to have many different insurance providers each with their own pool of insured. Each provider must have their own computer systems and support staff. The companies must make a profit on top of the administration required to return benefits to customers. Each time you pay out a benefit, your potential profit drops so there is a natural conflict of interest.

Now, let's look at a socialist system. You have one pool of insured. One infrastructure and your support staff supports everyone. The larger your pool of insured, the higher your negotiating power with health care providers - you're able to drive down costs. You're not required to make a profit so all of your income (after overhead) can go towards benefits.

This is the reason why our current capitalist system is so inefficient - meaning we pay much and don't get a lot in return.

http://www.visualeconomics.com/healthcare-costs-around-the-world_2010-03-01/

Other examples: the military, utilities, education, fire and rescue, anything requiring a large national infrastructure - railroads, communications, etc.

What I'd recommend is that we should consider the system which is going to be best, rather than simply saying capitalism is always better. "Capitalism is always better" is not sound policy. We should look at the situation, consider which method would give us a better value, and make our decisions based off of what will work best.

-David

Ain't hypocrisy a biatch! Doesn't it make you just want to throw a shoe at your TV and yell, "I can't believe they just said that!!!" :D

Michale.....

You are so full of BS that I'm speechless...

Am I?

I can provide plenty of examples of how utterly and completely hapless the Health Care is in the UK and Canada... Hundreds of deaths from sub-standard care and long waiting time..

Why is it that thousands of Canadians seek care in the US every year? Because the Canadian Health Care is not capable of providing the care they need..

59% of Canadians believe their Health Care is unsustainable.

Only 34% of Canadians are confident that their health care will provide affordable cancer medication.

And so on and so on and so on.

These are the facts..

As for the UK? Feggitaboudid... In the dictionary under POOREST HEALTH CARE PLAN EVER, there is a picture of the NHS.....

Look, I understand nationalism and I know you have as much pride in your country as I do in mine.

But the simple fact is, healthcare ideas such as those put forth in Canada and the UK do not meet the needs of the people and are completely unsustainable in the long run..

Which isn't to say that what we have here in the US is a pile of roses either.

Hopefully someone will come up with something that DOES work and that WILL work in the long term..

CW,

How about Berkeley? Not a bad school, right? Government-run... state, not fed, but that's splitting hairs...

Actually, the split hair is exactly the point.. State governments are always more responsive to their people...

There is not a program around that the US Government has run that runs better than private industry counterparts...

Especially THIS US government...

Michale.....

How about Berkeley? Not a bad school, right? Government-run... state, not fed, but that's splitting hairs...

:-)

-CW

Just in case people were wondering, sorry, no column today (Thursday). I had too much to do today, and not enough time to do it in. I had thought I could squeeze in enough time to write a quick column this afternoon, but spent the time fighting traffic instead (blech).

But don't worry, Friday Talking Points will appear as usual tomorrow.

-CW

"Government run health care is a disaster as Canada and the UK have proven beyond any doubt.."

You are so full of BS that I'm speechless...Thankfully your weird brand of cluelessness re. healthcare would be greeted by mass derision if you ever spouted that nonsense on our side of the border. Elizabeth and I are so grateful we don't have to deal with the idiocy that is your health system. Aargh!

That's all for now...I'll leave your other recent outrageous statements alone, there's no reasoning with whatever your mindset could be called.

That's a very short-sighted concept and I don't think that current private industry healthcare necessarily follows that model...

If you deny care, your customers die.. If your customers die, then you lose money...

Ergo, denying care is bad business...

Government run health care is a disaster as Canada and the UK have proven beyond any doubt..

And we shouldn't automatically take government solutions off the table.

Why not??

Can you name one successful operation run by the US Government that is not run better by private industry?

About the only possibility would be the US Military... And that's not entirely accurate, given the recent military debacles....

Michale.....

Hurrah!

The hypocrisy is just breathtaking.

Even more breathtaking is the corporate media's simple-minded reprinting of it.

To add to the discussion, Medicare is able to hold costs down better than the system Ryan has proposed. Why?

Because of their large pool of people and their negotiating power.

"Over the last two decades, costs in this competitive market [the Federal employee market] have risen faster than in Medicare itself, an average increase of nearly seven percent each year."

Government can and does do a better job at some things than the free market. This is a point that is not emphasized nearly enough.

What bugs me is Paul Ryan and others simply throwing around phrases like this:

"What we want to do with healthcare is apply those free market principles: choice, competition, transparency on price and quality. That to me is the way to reform healthcare."

No evidence. Nothing to show how the "free market" would do a better job. Just let the "free market" work. And it goes largely unchallenged.

I'm all for free markets in situations where they do work better. But there are places where they don't necessarily. Healthcare is a prime example. There's a huge conflict of interest because how do you get the biggest profits? By denying care to the most people.

What we should be considering is what works best for which situation. And we shouldn't automatically take government solutions off the table.

-David

Banter Media thinks it has fixed the "annoying audio ads" problem. So PLEASE, from this point in time onwards, let me know if you experience any of them.

And, for BMG and from CW.com, we do sincerely apologize for the snafu. Mea culpa maxima...

-CW

-CW