Friday, January 13, 2006

Time to grow up

I know this will not make a lot of conservatives happy but it is time to grow up in terms of government programs.

I realize that entitlement programs need reform, in fact I supported Bush's calls to cut back on the growth of Social Security.

But I think conservatives are still living in a dream world where things like the prescription drug plan have no place.

Folks, the difference is not between a drug plan and some old lady making choices between food and medicine, it is between nationalized medicine and a drug plan.

There was the Reagan revolution and there was the Contract with America and government is not smaller. This is not just because the Republicans did not cut spending enough, it is because the people want and expect a certain amount of government involvement in our economy and in people's lives.

There is just not consensus to cut out all government programs.

I used to milk cows for a living and once when I was in the business I went to Washington DC with a group of farm wives. Lobbying I guess you could call it. I met a man there who told me he had spent his life fighting dairy programs and I thought "In a world full of famine and war and tyranny he chooses to spend his time fighting people who milk cows. What a strange man."

I still feel that way. My check from the milk processor which bought my milk included money taken out to pay for the program. We were docked to pay for the surplus as well.

And in return when Americans walk into a grocery store they do not have to wonder if clean drinkable milk will be there. I know people think that the market can take care of all that. But the market does not give a damn if milk is there or not. The point to the programs is to make sure it will be.

Now if you think people are upset by the price of gas, imagine an empty dairy case. Perhaps centralizing the industry in the hands of very few producers would make control of production more manageable, but only to a point. Old Bessy ain't got a spigot, you can't just turn her off and on.

{and yes shortages can happen, they were not unusual before government programs, they called them butter riots}

39 comments:

Doug said...

Mao had the ultimate plan for Cultural Revolution:

Incredible story of a woman tortured under Mao for half her life who now owns
Geomagic, which has "defined and dominated the high-tech field of digital shape sampling and processing, or DSSP"
Ping Fu: Entrepreneur of the Year

"Ping was forced to watch the Red Guard tie a kindergarten teacher to four horses. The Guard members--just teenagers themselves--then startled the horses.

Ping was forced to watch another teacher be dropped head-first down a dry well.
She watched the Red Guard scald her little sister with boiling water because one day Hong made too much noise as she played.
Another day, the Red Guard threw Hong into a river for the fun of watching her drown.
Ping jumped into the river and dragged her out. The enraged Guard members then beat the girls, and raped Ping.

Now that Ping was an adult, and condemned as an enemy of the people, what hope did she have for a quick death?
As the dark hours bled out, Ping considered her "crime." Five years earlier, in 1976, Chairman Mao had died and the Cultural Revolution had come to an abrupt end...

Doug said...

Is Bush's presciption drug plan even economically sustainable for 40 years?
What is the projected cost?

Medical savings accounts and non-government insurance are the way to go imo.
Health Care Costs Spiraled when the govt got involved.

Would Lipitor be a $12 Billion dollar a year product without government subsidies, or would people choose to EAT LESS FAT?

If not, is that other people's children's problem?

Doug said...

"There was the Reagan revolution and there was the Contract with America and government is not smaller...
...it is because the people want and expect a certain amount of government involvement in our economy and in people's lives
"
---
That is a given when a free lunch is on the table, but what has that got to do with whether it is good policy, or even SUSTAINABLE policy over time?
Rational analysis either trumps wants, or else society descends into the equality of equalized poverty.
Current Social Programs are unsustainable Ponzi schemes riding on bogus bookkeeping and runaway immigration.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Terrye,

Sorry, I hardly agree with anything you wrote there, which is unusual.

First, if M8 the Hateful One is on your side, that should get you worried.

Second, there isn't some huge gang of "conservatives" out here who hate government at all costs and want to turf out the little old ladies into the streets. By framing the issues that way you have already turned it into an "us vs. them" paradigm and made it clear who the bad guys are. That's not conducive to rational discussion. The question isn't who the bad guys are; the question has always been what is the best use of our limited resources, and how can we make the best use of them.

It's simplistic though tempting to paint the world as good guys vs. bad guys. I don't particularly like it when people on here start trying to paint the world as "evil Leftists", implying that getting rid of the "Left" is the only problem. Nor do I think it's useful when people start painting with the "conservative" bursh. It would make life a lot easier if all we had to do is put all the Republicans in ovens as M8 the Hateful One wishes to do.

The very word "conservative" is wrong, because in general it is the Democrats these days who adamantly oppose change, as we discussed yesterday.

What the best way is to make efficient use of our resources so that the general welfare is optimized is a very big and complicated question that takes lots of discussion. I can't possibly begin to do it justice right now, or even in a lifetime. But I'll have more to say later after work. Stay tuned.

Anonymous said...

When American farmers with their combines, Roundup, price supports and export subsidies can produce corn or wheat at much cheaper prices than campesinos in Latin America or dirt farmers in Africa it's huge problem for the locals.

Yes, and the huge Brazilian soybean farmers are kicking small US producers all over the map. And there are plenty of Mexican agribusinesses - Bimbo, Herdez - that have made great inroads in the US market. This is much too complex to reduce to simple ideological statements.

flenser said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
flenser said...

I'll stop hijacking the thread.

Who are you, and what you done with markg8?

Unknown said...

When I milked cows they took a tax out to support the surplus which was mandated in order to ensure ample supplies for the much abused American taxpayer.

They also taxed me to support the dairy buyout. They also took my loan payment to FHA out of my milk check. There were a lot of months there when Uncle Sam made more money milking those cows than I did.

My point is a simple one.

They call it the Food Security Act not the Farmer Security Act for a reason.

You can not put milk in a grain bin and wait for the price to go up nor can you ship milk over long distances because it is perishable and very heavy. It has a short shelf life and it takes three years to grow a heifer from birth to production. Not a lot of flexibility there.

I have no problem with the reform of any programs and even getting rid of several, my problem is with people who act as if cheap food is in the Bill of Rights.

Back in the day when the market was the only thing controlling the price of milk farmers dumped milk to drive up prices. Consumers were outraged. They rioted. That is why there are such programs.

That is my point, when people talk about free lunches they have to realize that means them too. Once I got into a discussion about this with an economics professor. He called me a "welfare queen" because I had a dairy farm. I told him that I was tired of getting lectures on capitalism from people with tenure.

As for mark agreeing with me, well what can I say. It must be that stopped clock thing.

And as for the drug pescription thing, people can get rid of all that but if they actually have to provide for mom's meds and all her care they can forget sending the kids to college and a lot of other things they take for granted as well.

Nothing is free. And after I left the farm I went into health care and the costs have gone bezerk. There are people on social security living on less than $900 a month. BTW I know people who are getting this benefit and they do have to pay for it if they have the means. I know one couple that pays $500 a month for their Medicare. It is not just a giveaway.

Unknown said...

David:

There is no way to import cheap milk from Thailand or anywhere else.

Unless it is Canada.

flenser said...

I concur with MHA. Except with the definition of "conservative". The political meanings of liberal and conservative are not the same as the dictionary ones.

"Liberals" are not especially open-minded, and being opposed to change does not make Chinese communists "conservatives".

How come we never had a discussion of economic policy before?

I should add that I also agree with terrye, to an extent. There is a role for government to play in ensuring that our food and water are safe. But it seems a stretch to go on to say that the gubmint should pay for peoples perscription drugs.

Unknown said...

And btw, Cargill is not a third world farmer, they are however one of the leading producers of soybeans in the third world.

Without land reform and property rights increasing production of certain commodities in places like Brazil may not help the people you want it to help.

Hell, it worked out with oil, why not corn?

Doug said...

" By framing the issues that way you have already turned it into an "us vs. them" paradigm and made it clear who the bad guys are. That's not conducive to rational discussion"
MHA:
Well said.
OTOH, the Evil Leftists are Hell Bent on destroying this country!
;-)

Unknown said...

MHA:

It was not my intention to put things in the context of good guys vs bad guys.

I think that attitude may have come about years ago when I farmed.

However, I have to say I have heard conservatives like Fred Barnes say that in the future small government is less likely not more likely. That does not mean there can not and should not be reform and common sense in the programs however.


Maybe people need to realize that there are real people effected by these programs and when they say that we should just get rid of them, that in turn has an impact on people's lives.

Unknown said...

flenser:

Maybe conservative is not the word I want. After all I consider myself conservative in many ways.

I think it has to do with government intervention, when and where.

I farmed and so that makes me feel differently about it than I probably would otherwise and I worry about the wrong people getting control of the food source more than I used to.

Eric said...

Guys, Do you have any idea how much fraud and abuse costs the health-care industry? Some estimates are as high as $170 Billion a year.

I think the prescription plan is supposed to be like $400 billion across the life of the program.

As Mark said, things need to be revisited from time to time.

Unknown said...

eric:

For sure.

Doug said...

"Maybe people need to realize that there are real people effected by these programs and when they say that we should just get rid of them, that in turn has an impact on people's lives. "
---
But we need to keep in mind that out of control govt expansion also impacts everyone's lives.
Todays bulging budgets will be impossible to pay when harder times inevitably come.

Unknown said...

The costs of the medications are staggering. Perhaps there should be more and easier access to generic drugs, changes in patent laws.

I have a client who suffered a massive stroke in his fifties, he went through his insurance after he was forced to stay in a nursing home for some time. He lost his house and his savings and he is now on medicaid, he is 66 and he and his wife live in HUD housing on his social security, his wife is 64. The government pays for a great many of his meds, but he has to meet the "spenddown". That means he has to spend what money he has on doctors appointments or medications and only when he has spent down his social security to the point he has very little left will medicaid kick in. The wife gets no help at all. Recently she stopped buying her medication. They refuse to give her medicaid.

It is also true that there is a cut off on the pescription drug plan and people are paying as they have the means to pay. That is why there are so many different plans.

Is this fair? I don't know and I worry about the costs when the boomers retire.

But when people are spending hundreds of dollars month in and month out just on medicine it is hard to imagine a solution that is fair.

As for forcasting costs, that is true with a lot of things including the Iraq war.

flenser said...

Is it better for everyone to have the same quality of healthcare, even if it means low quality care, than for some people to have better quality care than others?

That seems to be the question this is moving towards. I don't think a third option is possible.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Unlike Knucklehead, I don't think these issues are solvable. There is never enough healthcare. Demand is infinite, particularly in the last tiny fraction of life.

Terrye, you say the cost of health care is staggering, but how does it compare to not having it at all, which is the case in Britain and Canada to a large extent. Here, we have things available which are very costly but which can extend your life. There, they simply die while waiting in the queue to get access to the health care. Which is fair, if fair makes any sense at all?

I think Flenser is right. There is a degree to which people will willingly die without getting health care provided they know that it's not accessible to those evil rich people either. A "We may be poor but at least we're all poor"--kind of mentality.

Then, as Knucklehead says, if government provides all health care, there's the issue of fairness. Why is it fair to subsidize the health care of people who haven't taken care of themselves? That issue will undoubtedly come up, and then there's the issue of why people should be allowed to not take care of themselves, because this is costing everybody else and society as a whole. So, we will have a new layer of bureaucracy like Human Services barging into our houses and monitoring us and taking away our "unhealthy" choices. What constitutes these choices, science being as poor as it is, will change in the political winds. So one year it will be verboten to read in bed and another year it will be verboten to run too many miles a day. It's a recipe for a complete nightmare.

At any rate, we're conflating two or three entirely different issues here, each one of which could occupy us for years.

Syl said...

I think Flenser is right. There is a degree to which people will willingly die without getting health care provided they know that it's not accessible to those evil rich people either. A "We may be poor but at least we're all poor"--kind of mentality.

I think this is crap.

Most Americans do not go around envying people that are richer than they are, wishing the worst for them. They just try to do the best they can for themselves.

Syl said...

Why is it fair to subsidize the health care of people who haven't taken care of themselves?

WTF does this mean anyway? Who decides what a healthy lifestyle is? It seems to change from year to year anyway, there are so many factors involved. It's more of a political issue than a health one and whatever the New York Times believes constitutes healthy living this year becomes the norm.

Until the next year.

What concerns me about some conservative thinking is that what they think is a healthy lifestyle has more do with conceptions of morality than health.

flenser said...

syl

Most Americans do not go around envying people that are richer than they are, wishing the worst for them.

This is largely correct, I think, but it misses the point. There is a powerful equalitarian movement in this country. The DLC, to say nothing of points left in the Democratic party, have called in the past for narionalized health care.

This is not based on envy, since the people involved are themselves reasonably well off. But it is based on a belief that everyone should be treated the same.

Unknown said...

MHA:

My point was not that I wanted to see Canadian health care in America, my point is that there but for the grace of God go I.

In other words, stop complaining about having to subsidize some old lady's blood pressure medicine. And often times people do...right up until they or someone they love needs the help.

BTW, my mother became one of these people after years of suffering I would not wish on a serial killer.

She had RPI which renedered her blind. She had an aneurism which left her prone to seizures and unable to feed or dress herself without assistance. Live with that kind of cost and loss for years and you get a different perspective.

It is not all about envying the rich, sometimes it is just about desperation and fear.

Unknown said...

flenser:

I don't really think that people want to be treated the same. Trust me I have worked in nursing homes, my mother died in one and the rich never have to see the inside of a place like that.

When you see costs go into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for long term care it is obvious that costs are prohibitive for most people.

Average people can not pay that, much less older people on fixed incomes and they can not afford private insurance either.

Unknown said...

knucklehead:

Everybody gets old, it has nothing to do with lifestyle.

People get sick, it is a fact of life.

Specter said...

Hey check this out. Pretty interesting. Here. What is really interesting is the signature list at the bottom.....

flenser said...

terrye

The patients you are talking about may well not want to be treated the same, although you seem to be saying that you want it.

But to repeat, the people I'm describing are not the less well off, but the upper middle class members of the Democratic party. It's really not a matter of opinion whether they want nationalized health care; they do.

If we can ever agree on that point we might move on to whether or not that would be a good idea.

Unknown said...

flenser:

I don't think we are even talking about the same people.

I am talking about a minimum of care for people with limited resources.

But I am concerned about the over all costs for people in general as well.

My own health insurance doubled this year.

Liability is a factor I am sure, but this is just not showing any signs of levelling off. I am sure the cost of health care has a lot to do with why Bush does not get better marks on the economy.

But I don't know the answer.

Unknown said...

specter:

I saw that, maybe someone would like to check it out and sign us up?

Syl said...

spectre

I'm not so sure I agree with sweeping reforms.

More transparency, yes.

Maybe the public just doesn't understand that the vast majority of lobbyists are not corrupt and that lobbying is an important part of our democratic process.

buddy larsen said...

The Medical Savings Accounts should help--whatever you put in gets tax-abated, then you use it to pay for your own medical care--and presumably you'll join the doc to help cork costs. Coupled with a catatrophic care policy, it will be an answer IF and WHEN enough folks use it.

buddy larsen said...

Big Agribiz is an easy target--but it is strong because it's efficient, meaning it lowers the cost of living, fights inflation, helps poor people at the checkout counter, etcetera. Undeniable. But, as is seen in the WalMart beouhaha, it IS easy to hate many of the accompanying dislocating effects. But Mark's comment about getting Big Agro off people's backs is just French-Farmer rhetoric. The market rewards low-cost production, and this force-of-nature builds big agribiz as surely as God makes little green apples. Sad but true.

buddy larsen said...

that said, there may be an answer to the "onion problem" besides govt subsidy. The "onion problem" is that when onion prices are up, everyone plants onions, then next year onions are down, and the farmers can't replant.

buddy larsen said...

It's basically a communication problem, perhaps. maybe the net will help fix it, eventually.

buddy larsen said...

Agribiz knows how to hedge, knows how to use futures and other derivatives to smooth the fluctuations and create predictability. Small farmers are naturally way behind this curve--but maybe their kids won't be.

buddy larsen said...

"Efficiency" per se is certainly not the be-all and end-all of life--it has no place in romance--but to deliberately "de-efficiency" a market segment is merely dumb, markets are 'about' efficiency, and all that romance achieves in markets is, less capital to work with (and more, for the competition).

Unknown said...

buddy:

I agree with a lot of what you say and young people are more efficient. I don't think most people want to farm like they used to.

What irritates me are the people who think that the market is a fine and dandy thing just so long as some farmer is losing his ass and the minute they have to pay more they demand that something be done, whatever that means.

Milk is in a category of its own because of what it takes to produce it and the fact that it can not be stored or held over.

You have to use it or dump it or dry it.

buddy larsen said...

Oh,lord, the complications of handling perishables are infinite. The troll's remark up above about dairying being the last place where no one can fail is just the most complete know-nothing city-snob rubbish I've heard in awhile. The efficiency demands on livestock businesses are tremendous--starting with the genetics of the herd.

Fail to optimize right there, and yer doomed--regardless of how well you can trick out maximum product sales per feed-dollar. regardless of how well you can trick out feed production per per water, tractor fuel, and labor costs, regardless of a hundred other cross-variables that are ALL critical--including how much 'build-in' your operation can achieve against weather vagaries.

But ya don't do much nightclubbing in your shiny sharkskin suit, so ya must be a dummy.