Comments on: Socialism http://www.brokenparadigmlabs.com/blog/2009/08/10/socialism/ [undefined] Sun, 23 Jan 2011 00:33:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: boston computer repair http://www.brokenparadigmlabs.com/blog/2009/08/10/socialism/comment-page-1/#comment-4516 boston computer repair Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:15:00 +0000 http://www.brokenparadigmlabs.com/blog/2009/08/10/socialism/#comment-4516 This is a good website I can not believe that I didn't find it earlier! This is a good website I can not believe that I didn’t find it earlier!

]]> By: ammonkc http://www.brokenparadigmlabs.com/blog/2009/08/10/socialism/comment-page-1/#comment-631 ammonkc Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:15:18 +0000 http://www.brokenparadigmlabs.com/blog/2009/08/10/socialism/#comment-631 The free market breaks down primarily in two scenarios: 1) Market Power - A market player gets so large as to allow anti-competitive behavior (monopoly, monopsony, etc). This is currently going on not in a national market, but in local markets. Blue Cross/Blue Shield might have 75% market share in one city, while it has 0% share in another city. Compare to Coke/Pepsi which have similar market shares across the county. Nonetheless, this type of local monopoly leads to anti-competitive behavior. 2) Poorly Drafted Laws - Governement currently supports various interest groups (doctors, lawyers, insurance companies, consumers, Pharma) in bizarrely drafted laws that were designed primarily to ensure that locally elected offficials got reelected by supporting their constituents and donors agendas. A rep from NJ is going to be completely in the pocket of Big Pharma (many are based there), while a rep from central Indiana might support Medical Device Manufacturers (many are based there). Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that "American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." That pretty much sums up the state of health care legislation. We are currently in a situation where these two horrible powers are both competing for primacy at the expense of the other. If you think it is simply one or the other causing this mess, I would encourage you to do more research outside of opinion pieces on the internet. The free market breaks down primarily in two scenarios:
1) Market Power – A market player gets so large as to allow anti-competitive behavior (monopoly, monopsony, etc). This is currently going on not in a national market, but in local markets. Blue Cross/Blue Shield might have 75% market share in one city, while it has 0% share in another city. Compare to Coke/Pepsi which have similar market shares across the county. Nonetheless, this type of local monopoly leads to anti-competitive behavior.

2) Poorly Drafted Laws – Governement currently supports various interest groups (doctors, lawyers, insurance companies, consumers, Pharma) in bizarrely drafted laws that were designed primarily to ensure that locally elected offficials got reelected by supporting their constituents and donors agendas. A rep from NJ is going to be completely in the pocket of Big Pharma (many are based there), while a rep from central Indiana might support Medical Device Manufacturers (many are based there). Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that “American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” That pretty much sums up the state of health care legislation.

We are currently in a situation where these two horrible powers are both competing for primacy at the expense of the other. If you think it is simply one or the other causing this mess, I would encourage you to do more research outside of opinion pieces on the internet.

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