Rattle wrote:

Milton Friedman, the Nobel-prize winning economist who helped shape and define free-market economic theory, died Thursday at the age of 94 in San Francisco.

RIP.. We owe much to Friedman.

whatever. punk owed me some trickle down. free market my ass.

whatever. punk owed me some trickle down. free market my ass.

Trickle Down == Trickle Around ... in reality.

Show me a perfect theory of economics, and I'll show you the end times.

Neoteric wrote:

Rattle wrote:

Milton Friedman, the Nobel-prize winning economist who helped shape and define free-market economic theory, died Thursday at the age of 94 in San Francisco.

RIP.. We owe much to Friedman.

whatever. punk owed me some trickle down. free market my ass.

His biggest argument, and the one that will probably ultimately stamp his legacy, was that less government intervention in markets accelerates innovation and has a positive effect on the economy. Things that would ultimately 'trickle down' which would benefit from LESS government intervention are healthcare, telecommunications, real estate, and education. All of these sectors of the economy are facing horrible growth rates or inflation (or both) and that's mostly due to improper alignment of competition or governmental regulation which enforces monopoly.

A good example of how this could work is the energy industry, which has much less regulation than ever, and hence, has been drowning in profits for the last few years. Innovation has moved from a complete standstill 5 years ago to huge investments and growth rates in new technologies, techniques, and processes for energy production, distribution, and consumption.

flynn23 wrote:
Things that would ultimately 'trickle down' which would benefit from LESS government intervention are healthcare...

I'd be interesting in hearing more of your views on that. There is a big effort to nationalize healthcare here, and its not just pushed by liberals. Some big business seems to think that the cooresponding tax burden would be lower. Personally, I'd like to see other options on the table. I don't think universal health care is nessecary to fix some of the existing coverage gaps in our society.

What are the biggest inefficiencies generated by overregulation today? You have a much better view of this than me. It has always struck me as odd that some one with a 3 year college degree who makes nearly as much as I do gets athsma inhalers for me at the drug store and operates the cash register. I realize that some people are afraid of getting the wrong medicine, but is there a cheaper way? What about drug testing? It seems there are risks associated with that which lead to the amount of regulation.

Decius wrote:

flynn23 wrote:
Things that would ultimately 'trickle down' which would benefit from LESS government intervention are healthcare...

I'd be interesting in hearing more of your views on that. There is a big effort to nationalize healthcare here, and its not just pushed by liberals. Some big business seems to think that the cooresponding tax burden would be lower. Personally, I'd like to see other options on the table. I don't think universal health care is nessecary to fix some of the existing coverage gaps in our society.

What are the biggest inefficiencies generated by overregulation today? You have a much better view of this than me. It has always struck me as odd that some one with a 3 year college degree who makes nearly as much as I do gets athsma inhalers for me at the drug store and operates the cash register. I realize that some people are afraid of getting the wrong medicine, but is there a cheaper way? What about drug testing? It seems there are risks associated with that which lead to the amount of regulation.

Socializing health care is the most commonly mentioned technique for providing universal health care. I would define universal health care as the ability for any citizen to have access to quality affordable health care services, including preventative, ambulatory, specialized, and pharmaceutical, not just trauma or Medicaid-like services (ie. free clinic). Socializing this, or using the government to manage, oversee, and provide, will not work in the US. Most other nations which have this system are rapidly moving away from it. The simple reason why is cost, but the underlying reason is that it stifles innovation.

The US actually has the best quality services in the world, but the standard deviation of who gets them and how often they are deployed is also the highest in the world. Government regulation is only partly to blame. I think of it more as getting the government to incentivize change rather than to keep the current institution. Much like telecommunications!

You could provide universal health care but you'd have to radically re-align the system so that stakeholders compete based upon outcomes (ie results) instead of treating based upon episode and billing fee for service. This would not provide a system where every citizen would get the same "level" of health care service, but it would provide that every citizen would get quality affordable service based upon a tiering of cost per outcome. So the poor would get results, but the rich would get them faster, with more bells and whistles, and more conveniently at a higher price. Much like any other product or service you procure today.

This would whittle out poor quality providers, encourage 'telemedicine' (using the best provider no matter where located, even if out of the US), eliminate waste and redundancy in the system, and ultimately lower prices and acce... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

flynn23 wrote:
You could provide universal health care but you'd have to radically re-align the system so that stakeholders compete based upon outcomes (ie results) instead of treating based upon episode and billing fee for service. This would not provide a system where every citizen would get the same "level" of health care service, but it would provide that every citizen would get quality affordable service based upon a tiering of cost per outcome. So the poor would get results, but the rich would get them faster, with more bells and whistles, and more conveniently at a higher price. Much like any other product or service you procure today.

Flynn23 provides some interesting insight into tackling the problems with our healthcare system.

You could provide universal health care but you'd have to radically re-align the system so that stakeholders compete based upon outcomes (ie results) instead of treating based upon episode and billing fee for service. This would not provide a system where every citizen would get the same "level" of health care service, but it would provide that every citizen would get quality affordable service based upon a tiering of cost per outcome. So the poor would get results, but the rich would get them faster, with more bells and whistles, and more conveniently at a higher price. Much like any other product or service you procure today.

Flynn23 provides some interesting insight into tackling the problems with our health care system.

Rattle wrote:

Milton Friedman, the Nobel-prize winning economist who helped shape and define free-market economic theory, died Thursday at the age of 94 in San Francisco.

RIP.. We owe much to Friedman.

Do you think instead of going to heaven, that he became CopyBot on Second Life?

terratogen wrote:

Rattle wrote:

Milton Friedman, the Nobel-prize winning economist who helped shape and define free-market economic theory, died Thursday at the age of 94 in San Francisco.

RIP.. We owe much to Friedman.

Do you think instead of going to heaven, that he became CopyBot on Second Life?

THAT was hilarious! Good job! =)