I was researching data for another post and came across this fun fact:
President Nixon’s plan for national health insurance rejected by liberals & labor unions, but his “War on Cancer” centralizes research at the NIH.
Up is down and down is up.
Fascinating.
This afternoon Occupy Raleigh #Occupied a house that had been foreclosed on where the former owner had maintained residence.
Many were arrested.
The usual story applies.
What struck me were these two comments:
Todd Warren, an Occupy organizer from Greensboro, said the group thinks Nikki Shelton is one of more than 10 families in the neighborhood who face illegal foreclosure. The protesters say they’ve uncovered “evidence of robo-signing,” the practice where mortgage servicers sign documents without reading them.
“Housing is a human right,” Warren said. “We’re not going to let people be put out of their homes while banks make record profit.”
To be honest, if the families are being evicted from their homes illegally, I support holding the banks accountable. But the idea that “housing is a human right” is patently absurd. There can be nothing that is a human right that requires another man do anything in order to secure that right.
And then this statement:
Shelton, who was not among those arrested Monday, stood solemnly in the sun outside her former home during the protest.
“This is my civil right to fight to get my home back,” she said. “It’s not us who are the ones doing anything against the law.”
It’s her civil right to get her home back. A home that she hasn’t been able to pay for. A home, that since 2007, she hasn’t paid for, is hers. And that denying her that home is somehow denying her civil rights.
Lord.
A few years ago the fire department in South Fulton, TN made national news when rushed to the scene of a house fire and —
Let the thing burn to the ground.
It turns out that the family hadn’t paid their $75 annual fire protection fee:
Firefighters aren’t afraid to break down windows and doors to douse flames, but a Tennessee family’s failure to pay a $75 fee stopped firefighters dead in their tracks last week as a home burned to the ground.
South Fulton, Tenn., firefighters stood on the sidelines, watching as flames engulfed Gene Cranick’s Obion County home. They refused to help because Cranick had not paid an annual “pay to spray” subscription fee.
“I just forgot to pay my $75,” homeowner Gene Cranick said. “I did it last year, the year before. … It slipped my mind.”
The city of South Fulton charges that $75 fire protection fee to rural residents who live outside the city limits. When a household has not paid the fee, firefighters are required by law to not respond.
It turns out that when you live within the city limits you pay taxes that support things like fire departments. But when you live outside those city limits, and avoid paying those taxes, you do not get to enjoy things that those taxes pay for. Things like fire stations.
The outrage was all the rage at the time. My liberal talk show hosts couldn’t stop talking about it for days.
Not surprisingly, I took the Libertarian approach:
If you want fire station protection, you should pay for it; if you don’t, then don’t.
Posted in Economics, Government, Politics: National
Tagged Brad and Britt, Free Market, Incentives, Insurance, Kentucky, Tennessee
During the hearing of Obamacare, the news was full of analysis. One of those pieces, in the “USA Today”, made a point that food is more of a basic need to people than healthcare:
A brief submitted by 215 economists argues that food is even more basic to survival than health care…
I was struck by this last night as I was cleaning out some of my “stack” in my office last night.
See, the food delivery market, while not perfectly so, is a free market example of how goods can be distributed efficiently. Based on demand and the profit motive, food stuffs are delivered to a literal market where individual shoppers are allowed to “ration” themselves based, in part, by how much money they have and what types of services they want.
For example, in my market I can by generic chicken soup, Ramen noodles and rice. Or, I can walk 50 feet away and purchase hand rolled sushi, fillet mignon, $60 wine and lobster.
As a real example of the power of markets I picked up this flier:
For $5, this profit driven market is offering a meal that feeds 4 people, perhaps more if the kids are younger.
If medical care were subject to the same market forces you would see the same thing happen with the cost of medical care. In the same way, if you allowed health insurance to be impacted by the same market forces, you would see prices of health insurance react in the same manner.
It’s only when government intercedes, by mandating acupuncture coverage, or by restricting the sale of insurance polices across state lines, that you see the price of a good or service go up.
Posted in Economics, Government, Health Care, Politics: National
Tagged Capitalism, Free Market, Mandate, Regulations
From my local news source, the AP announced:
This was announced at 06:58 AM this morning.
I sure do hope the economy continues to recover. I say this knowing that it will buoy an Obama election effort, however, it’s time for the uncertainly in the nation’s economy to shift to robust growth.
With that said, I am not sure this current recovery will be either long lived or robust.