Dele said:
PaulH said:
If you're talking government control, you're talking regulations. Regulations are the things that help keep your water and electricity affordable. Keep CPI nominal to the average consumer, maintain a decent standard of corporate liability.
If you privatise all your services as America has, the only thing keeping corporations from raping the average American's wallet is the government telling industry .. "This is a fair price" and a "fair duty of care"
Keeping water and electricity affordable is irresponsible and stupid as it completely ignores the scarcity of such goods and acts as if there were an unlimited supply of water and electricity which leads to waste. For example in Australia they have government restrictions on usage on water. You can only water your garden on thursday if you have an odd house number or similiar and they have water nazi squads going around and issuing tickets to everyone who "uses too much water"...
PaulH said:
Even then it doesn't work with all industries, medical Insurance firms, or 'HMOs', have allowed the costs of medicine in America to rise excruciatingly high, despite having a CPI half of what Australia has, and 3/4s that of the UK.
Public Health + Education and High Interest rates = only way to save America ... otherwise we're going to see another Soviet Union in 20 years ... selling off trillions of dollars of military equipment around the world which will permanently screw up everybody else.
Public education one of the last of the communist strongholds that needs to be struck down for the greater good of all. Let me tell you about our "worlds best public education system [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment]".
For example in high schools we have a state planned education which essentially means that State declares some courses to be mandatory and sets a quota of courses before you can graduate. See how horribly inefficient such a system is? I for myself spent two extra years studying things 'because state said so' that had no value or help to me which essentially means it's two years off from my working career, two years less paying taxes.
If you wanna train a doctor, you dont need to teach him history. If you wanna train a historian, you dont need to teach him high math or nuclear physics. This is essentially the same as state declaring in planned economy that "you need to build more shoes" "umm, but we already have more shoes than we can ever consume" "you will build more shoes because we like shoes and shoes are good for you even if you dont understand it yourself you stupid peasant!".
Now since we spend huge amount of time studying worthless crap, we dont have enough courses that we really would have needed and the few we have are rushed through. Since the artificial quota has been set high many school developed "walk up the stairs" -course or "tell the professor a joke" -course or other nonsense courses to help us meet the legal quota.
PaulH said:
Its better, from both a financial and ethical viewpoint, to prevent people getting sick then having to cure them once they do. No job downtime, greater efficiency, less virulence of workplace and public forums.
From financial viewpoint, its better to have as many people smoke as possible because they die earlier and we save money (less pensions, less healthcare). This is essentially what public healthcare is based on since with private healthcare the costs of screwing your body fall completely to yourself.
Well 1st point: Water = scarce .. therefore government controls usage. Just like if food were scarce, government would ration it. I fail to see your logic that water costs should spike so people would use less of it because they have to pay more for it.
Isn't it a better system to keep water more affordable, and just limit it's usage via policing? You say 'nazism' ... I say it's fair ... under your system a rich person would get to build and fill an olympic swimming pool because he can afford it, whilst a poorer person would pay twice, to three times as much for a vegetable patch.
The system works because it allows liability to stand with over-consumers of water, whilst not penalising the working or middle class for their responsible use of water.
2nd point: No 10-16 (perhaps once they get to 17 or 18) year old knows what they want to do in life. So Education is important to determine what they are most enthused about when it comes to academia or trades. Enthusiastic workers = productive workers. If I hate a job, i'm not going to do as well as someone who likes theirs in the same occupation.
What you're suggesting is People should just be shackled to a single field of study in the advent of them saying 'They want to be such and such' when they first enter High School. No kid knows what they want to do when they get into High School, and most people can realise the benefit of expanding a child's knowledge of the world in many different ways.
I find it somewhat perplexing how you cannot see this ... if I'm studying to be a doctor, does that mean I should not be given the option of picking up a bit of Japanese? A bit of Psychology perhaps ... knowledge is universal, and what you study outside your chosen field of academia can sometimes prove as pivotal of importance as the stuff you learn within.
Certainly you can see the importance that if you want to be an accountant, learning a bit of First Aid and basic Anatomical Science in school is still an important thing?
I'm studying atm a BA/Psych, because I wasn't sure whether I wanted to do my ME (Secondary) and become a High School counselor.
I've also done units in Philosophy, Japanese and Australian History ... and all courses I've done thus far have helped expand my focus and give me a well-rounded knowledge base. How is it a bad thing for any graduate to have a diverse knowledge of the world? Having doctors who know how to comment on the morality of their conduct and of modern medicine is useful, having teachers who can comment, educate and enlighten students with questions beyond that of their curriculum is equally important as well. Having business leaders who can diversify and create new business models and better working conditions for their employees are boons for the economic prosperity of their firms.
If you proposed that then all doctors would only heal the sick using same techniques every other doctor would perscribe. That all business leaders be learned in the same business models as every other company, and act like every other firm. Teachers would only beable to educate in their specialist fields, rather than catering their student's questions with a unique perspective. Through diversity Mankind survives despite pitted against the endless chaos of Nature.
Secondly, Education should be free ... poor people should have access to the same level of education as the rich ... your argument presupposes that a good king's son will be a good king also simply because he is the progeny of a noble being.
Many people can't afford a good education, why should those that cannot earn as much as another also not be allowed the tools to ascend from their poverty?
And point 3: Well ethics-wise, I've already stated the point you quoted above. No faulting the logic. Economically it is better for people to live longer lives as opposed to shorter. The healthier a person is, the longer they can work. If it takes 8 years to educate a doctor, then it's better to have them working for 60 years there after instead of only 50.
It's also better for businesses that their workers are healthy as well, as they can benefit from longer working periods and reduced downtime from illness.
Do you know how much it costs to operate on a cancer patient? Or to have to put someone on a dialysis machine and look for a spare kidney? Far more than it costs simply to give them a pension and maintain their general health.
This is why America spends more of it's GDP than nations with public healthcare initiatives. If America were to provide a service similiar to that of Cuba or Australia, you would have workers who would maintain a longer service history (thus cutting costs on pensions and increasing the efficiency of companies as they get to benefit from having extremely experienced workers) as well as achieve a greater quality of life for the populace ... thus requiring less medical attention, and promoting greater self reliance.
And despite having public healthcare and public education, as well as paid sick leave + maternity/paternity leave + 4 weeks paid vacation each year ... nobody seems to use it... ref. http://www.smh.com.au/travel/aussies-working-worlds-longest-hours-20090109-7da3.html , which just goes to show that not everybody is a time wasting layabout willing to defraud the system.
If our medical care systems can keep a 70 year old working 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week and willing to work everyday without taking a 'sickie' ... certainly that is good for businesses correct?
There's no reason why America cannot implement a similiar culture of workaholism o.o Coupled with depressingly high alcoholism <.<;; But I digress .. no system is perfect .. and Australia's is far from it ... but healthier people = more productive people is kinda my argument.
Good counter argument by the way ... on the education bit anyways .. I kinda see your point .. but not really when it came to your views on raising water costs and that having sick people are good for the economyo.o
