Apparently Che’s hatred of evil corporations doesn’t extend to Apple, which is apparently set apart from all other corporations in his mind. Since we already know what sort of rock solid reasoning we can expect from him based on his other arguments, we can probably assume Apple isn’t like other corporations because “Apple’s cool.”

You’re very welcome. Any other questions you may have such as: “Under a free-market, will I still be able to where pants if I wish?”, you be sure to ask me.

“massive privatisation…I just wonder why no one on this planet seems to enjoy the benefits of that ideal system.”

Hopeless.

You just convinced me. Many thanks

I understand, then, that the whole idea lying behind the massive privatisation of health care services is based on this assumption: ‘The costs of medical care in a free market would be so low that only the very poorest could not afford it’ and that ‘others would be considerably richer, which would make them more inclined to give to charity’.

It is interesting. I just wonder why no one on this planet seems to enjoy the benefits of that ideal system.

The costs of medical care in a free market would be so low that only the very poorest could not afford it. But at the same time, others would be considerably richer, which would make them more inclined to give to charity. Have a little faith in your fellow man. Most are quick to help out those who can’t. For example, one of my brothers-in-law is a Shriner and he has worked many weekends for decades to raise money for the Shriners’ childrens hospital which take care of kids for nothing. They even provide transportation and lodging for the parents while the kid is in the hospital.

No.

I am not satisfied with the answers that have been given in response to my question, however easy or challenging you may think it is. So, to be clearer, it boils down to the following:

Within a free market model, the cost of medical care – even assuming it would decrease following massive privatisation – will always be such that some people will not be in a position to get the care they need. To those people, would you then have to say: ‘Sorry for you, but you will need to borrow money from your siblings or friends or die’ ?
Thank you!

I am not saying that your arguments were incorrect. I am merely saying that you should consider how such things effect your public image.

I mention it because I quoted the deleted text in my comment above.

“If one rejects laissez faire on account of man’s fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.”

- Ludwig von Mises

I am well aware of the propensity of politicians to make careers out of holding public office, something that our founders never intended, but to say that the money private industry and lobbyists poor into the political system share none of the blame for the permanence of these politicians is simply false.

He simply does not understand. First off, Woods didn’t say this and second, it’s an argument FOR a free market. Government by definition is granted a monopoly on force. If any organization has that power, the businesses that stand the least chance of competing in a free market will attempt to use that power to hurt/prevent competition or, just as bad, to force citizens to become their customers.

Halliburton (every tax-payer is a customer) could not exist in a free market. Big Pharma (who is spending millions supporting ObamaCare) would not be able to get away with what it does if it hadn’t captured the regulatory powers of the FDA long ago. Wall Street has become so adept at using governments powers that you can no longer tell where Wall Street ends and government begins. All the cases of business exploiting people share a common thread. It wouldn’t have been possible without the power of the state… the power that Che supports and wants to strengthen.

For all the people asking about healthcare, I suggest reading this short article….

http://www.strike-the-root.com/92/allport/allport1.html

These people also seem to view the government (and big corporations) as having a giant, bottomless magic egg full of goodies and money. These goodies aren’t passed out only because the magic egg is controlled by Big Meanies (“Free health care for all!” “Heck, free EVERYTHING for EVERYBODY”).

They will not understand that the government is merely other human beings always acting as a SWAT TEAM with no money or assets of its own.

Further, I suspect that most supporters of the Fed have truly come to view it as both Mary Poppins and Magic Egg which, unfortunately, is the basis for their apparently unshakeable misguided view of reality. Conservative Fed supporters may generally appear to understand Austrian concerns with government action. Despite this, the Fed somehow becomes the unquestionable agent of magic and the supernatural in their minds, replacing “the government”.

People who think like this appear to me to be hopeless. But this is who are opponent is.

I blame him for being so incorrigibly incurious. The brighter kids figure out they’re being fed propaganda of the crudest and most obvious kind, which is designed to make them obedient little servants of their overlords, who claim to protect them from the evil exploiters they read about in their textbooks. These kids seek out the truth, and discover that the real exploiters are the overlords themselves, parasites on the productive economy, who live on the fruits of other people’s labor while blaming the resulting social ills on the various bogeymen the kids have been taught to hate.

Just beautiful. Brought a tear to my eye.

Realizing that much over the $5000 would mean bankruptcy anyway, I figured, “what the heck?” and canceled that worthless insurance. Could I have more security today, if I had not spent the $15,000+ on insurance? Sure. Am I going to stay healthy forever? No. Would having such insurance matter? No.

I’ll roll the dice and bank the money. Besides, I don’t have the cash flow to support the insurance company — and I can get “free” insurance through my state, but only if I don’t have insurance. Plus, the President just said I can have everything I want, and all you folks and generations of your grandchildren will pay for it. Cool. Suckers, aren’t we?

If he did, he seems to have deleted it…I can’t see any response.

“This is why nonchemists do not write about chemistry, and nonbotanists stay out of botany. At this point our author is simply making things up.”

No, he isn’t. Read on.

“…But for a simple reply to the claim that under competitive conditions wages will fall, we ask the simple question: has this in fact happened?

“During the 19th century, without any of the institutions that Che thinks make wages rise, real wages quadrupled [read below for what this leaves out]. This is not supposed to happen, according to him — competition among workers should make wages go down. But whom are you going to believe, Che or your own eyes?”

Precisely. What your own eyes should tell you is that they went down – and later, when some other factors had come into play, they went up even more. The precise pattern and timing varied from country to country; in the UK real wages were probably at their lowest just before the 1846 Repeal of the Corn Laws that let cheaper food into the country.

“There is no point in pretending that the level of compensation workers enjoy today has anything to do with the minimum wage or labor unions; the vast majority of Americans earn much more than the minimum wage, and labor unions have always been a negligible factor in the United States. US workers’ wages have consistently outpaced those of the much more heavily unionized countries of Europe. Che can account for none of this; we should, according to his logic, all be earning minimum wage.”

Actually, it’s more complicated than that. The bottom end of the scale to some extent sets the base for the whole range, so the minimum wage does affect all the other positions somewhat – because the logic does not mean that everything settles on a single level.

“…the tendency for real incomes to increase on a free market… When firms increase and improve the equipment and machinery at the disposal of workers, their labor becomes more productive… The amount of production the economy is capable of [emphasis added] is thereby increased… This process is the only way the general standard of living can possibly rise. Only in this way can the average laborer produce the tiniest fraction of what today he is accustomed to producing… the process by which everyone in society [emphasis added] sees his purchasing power rise.”

Do you notice the amount of switching back and forth? Actually, wages of the workforce go up, the workforce may well shrink, production can even fall – and real incomes (including those of people who are not workers, i.e. unemployed) may go down. In extreme historical cases like the early stages of the Enclosure of the Commons, this actually happened. The author’s argument only works when all factors – including labour – are fully employed and the categories work out the same in practice. So it is important to look into how far off this optimum things are.

The author’s broad conclusions happen to be correct for quite other reasons, but on the way there he used unsound arguments, “trying to prove too much”.