Arrogance. Its crazy for a group of mere mortals to try to design 15% of US economy [John Stossel]

Townhall ^ | July 22, 2009 | John Stossel

[Tolik]

It's crazy for a group of mere mortals to try to design 15 percent of the U.S. economy. It's even crazier to do it by August.

Yet that is what some members of Congress presume to do. They intend, as the New York Times puts it, "to reinvent the nation's health care system".

Let that sink in. A handful of people who probably never even ran a small business actually think they can reinvent the health care system.

Politicians and bureaucrats clearly have no idea how complicated markets are. Every day people make countless tradeoffs, in all areas of life, based on subjective value judgments and personal information as they delicately balance their interests, needs and wants. Who is in a better position than they to tailor those choices to best serve their purposes? Yet the politicians believe they can plan the medical market the way you plan a birthday party.

Leave aside how much power the state would have to exercise over us to run the medical system. Suffice it say that if government attempts to control our total medical spending, sooner or later, it will have to control us.

Also leave aside the inevitable huge cost of any such program. The administration estimates $1.5 trillion over 10 years with no increase in the deficit. But no one should take that seriously. When it comes to projecting future costs, these guys may as well be reading chicken entrails. In 1965, hospitalization coverage under Medicare was projected to cost $9 billion by 1990. The actual price tag was $66 billion.

The sober Congressional Budget Office debunked the reformers' cost projections. Trust us, Obama says. "At the end of the day, we'll have significant cost controls," presidential adviser David Axelrod said. Give me a break.

Now focus on the spectacle of that handful of men and women daring to think they can design the medical marketplace. They would empower an even smaller group to determine -- for millions of diverse Americans -- which medical treatments are worthy and at what price.

How do these arrogant, presumptuous politicians believe they can know enough to plan for the rest of us? Who do they think they are? Under cover of helping uninsured people get medical care, they live out their megalomaniacal social-engineering fantasies -- putting our physical and economic health at risk in the process.

Will the American people say "Enough!"?

I fear not, based on the comments on my blog. When I argued last week that medical insurance makes people indifferent to costs, I got comments like: "I guess the 47 million people who don't have health care should just die, right, John?" "You will always be a shill for corporate America."

Like the politicians, most people are oblivious to F.A. Hayek's insight that the critical information needed to run an economy -- or even 15 percent of one -- doesn't exist in any one place where it is accessible to central planners. Instead, it is scattered piecemeal among millions of people. All those people put together are far wiser and better informed than Congress could ever be. Only markets -- private property, free exchange and the price system -- can put this knowledge at the disposal of entrepreneurs and consumers, ensuring the system will serve the people and not just the political class.

This is no less true for medical care than for food, clothing and shelter. It is profit-seeking entrepreneurship that gave us birth control pills, robot limbs, Lasik surgery and so many other good things that make our lives longer and more pain free.

To the extent the politicians ignore this, they are the enemy of our well-being. The belief that they can take care of us is rank superstition.

Who will save us from these despots? What Adam Smith said about the economic planner applies here, too: The politician who tries to design the medical marketplace would "assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it."

[Tolik]

Nailed It!

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[wordsofearnest]

Amen

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

What Johnny boy doesn't seem to grasp is that 0bama and his socialist cabal are trying intentionally to destroy the free market system. This is just one more part of the plan.

Not that the current health care system can truly be called free market but it's a hell of a lot better than what these a-holes in Congress are going to foist on us.

[Rummyfan]

Total insanity: reform fifteen percent of the United States economy, and the boy emperor insists it be done in the next two weeks. I for one am sick and tired of the imperial presidency and Congress and am about ready to march on Washington. Keep your damned dirty hands off my health care!!!!! I don't give a rat's rear about the supposed 42 or 46 or 50 million uninsured Americans. That's their choice and why should I have to change my care to accommodate them? I don't even care about the proposed costs. This entire effort is about government control of every aspect of your life, plain and simple, and WE SHOULD NOT STAND FOR IT.

[lowbridge]

bump

[Tolik]

Stossel: To the extent the politicians ignore this, they are the enemy of our well-being.

There is no doubt that Stossel sees the current arrogant bosses as enemies of free market.

But don’t let the facts stop you.

Why is this condescension: “Johnny boy”? Agree or disagree with this author, did he deserve at least some respect? In a civilized discussion, of course.

[upchuck]

Megga BUMP!

Thanks for posting the entire article.

[freekitty]

What’s even crazier is to let people who know next to nothing about business loose on the economy.

[KeyLargo]

Looks like B.O.’s tax the rich plans will have some problems!

Chicago Loses Millionaires A 16 percent drop

By STEVE RHODES

Updated 10:45 AM CDT, Tue, Jul 21, 2009
Related Topics: Chicago

It’s not this bad for Chicago’s wealthy, but they’re getting at least a little taste of the recession.

Chicago has lost 16 percent of its millionaires - and that’s not just because so many of them have gone to work in the Obama White House.

A new study shows that Chicago is down to 172,000 millionaires.

And we’re doing better than many other cities.

Orlando, for example, has lost 42 percent of its millionaires; Las Vegas has lost 38 percent of theirs.

That’s bad news for everyone who depends on the wealthy in one way or another. The headline on the story about the study in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, for example, was “In American Cities, Ranks of Wealthy Donors to Solicit Thin.”

Areas with growing populations are not necessarily the ones with growing ranks of wealthy individuals, Reuters reports. Instead, cities more dependent on real estate and with less diverse economies are the ones being hit the hardest.

“All of the top spots are bubble-era boom towns fueled largely by real estate,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “So their declines were driven by real estate as well, along with a drop in tourism.”

The study’s author, David Wilson, of Capgemini Consulting, told the Jacksonville, Fla., Observer that America still has more millionaires than the next two countries - Japan and Germany - combined.

But “Wilson said the drop in millionaires isn’t just felt among the brie and white wine set. When investible assets fall the way they have, government tax dollars shrink, reducing public services, while service industries that depend on discretionary spending by the wealthy also tighten.

“Investment in such economic engines as real estate and entrepreneurial businesses also is dwindling,” he said.

And that’s really the problem with millionaires: can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/business/Chicago-Loses-Millionaires.html

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I always call him Johnny boy as a term of endearment. Just as I call my friend Dan, Danny boy.

If Mr. Stossel objects, he is free to enjoin me from addressing him in that manner.

[workerbee]

Will the American people say "Enough!"?

I fear not, based on the comments on my blog. When I argued last week that medical insurance makes people indifferent to costs, I got comments like: "I guess the 47 million people who don't have health care should just die, right, John?" "You will always be a shill for corporate America."

This is the crux of most of our problems. This is as deep as most people's thinking goes. And they vote.

[RipSawyer]

Amen, I have taken to telling people that Obama and crew cannot possibly be stupid enough to think that what they are doing will help matters. If they were that stupid they couldn’t tie their own shoes, therefore the only reasonable explanation is that they are deliberately wrecking the economy and everything else that made this nation great.

[stuartcr]

Who would do it, if not mortals?

[Tolik]

Right. It goes together with the fact that almost 45% (?) of population pay no federal income tax (FICA still applies, as sale, gas and other taxes and fees). When people start thinking that it’s somebody else responsibility, the so called THEY, and not me or us - they welcome the welfare nanny state, and we’ll join the Europeans in the decline.

[Tolik]

Millions of mortals through the free markets. Not a few dozen mortals in the central planning bureaucracy.

[waxer1]

What bothers me too is the Republicans like DeMint we have a better plan etc....Sir, stay out of it completely. govt has no business trying to “fix” the healthcare system.

Republican or Democrat they (the govt) have no business trying to fix anything much less the health care system.

[stuartcr]

OK