Take China for example. A middle class person in China today lives like an upper class person compared to the 1700s. A poor person on average anywhere is doing way better than ever before…
I’m actually not really. Here’s at least a logical arguments one could make.
Healthcare is a scarce resource like all things. Making it universal doesn’t exempt it from that fact. Removing it from a competitive market will likely make it more expensive and prevent innovations which will keep it affordable. Competitive markets drive efficiency.
Government provided healthcare rations service availability based on criteria they set. A private system rations availability based on the indivual’s ability to afford the service. If people can afford the service additional capacity can be created with that money. Under a government system extremely long wait times are the norm … With health this may mean late diagnosis of cancer and other suboptimal outcomes.
People are generally more wealthy in the later years of their lives and also in need of more care. Under a public system the costs associated with an aging population will be disproportionately placed on younger people who still pay taxes in their prime earning years. With the number of working people constantly decreasing when compared to the number of retired baby boomers this is unsustainable under a public system.
At the end of the day I think free markets apply poorly to healthcare because you have no ability to comparison shop during a medical emergency. Also US seems to have the worst mix of regulated private healthcare which has kept costs the highest of any country. I do think most social democratic countries are basically screwed over the next 20 years with the demographics being what they are.
There’s at least a grain of truth in that book. Try starting a business or producing something.
Look at domestic attempts to mine lithium or building semiconductor plants. Try building anything here.
“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed.”
It speaks against a system where political favour dictates your success as a producer over your ability to compete. If you feel land owners and intellectual property owners are gate keepers in a society where your can have your own ideas and buy your own property I don’t know what to say.
Some environmental impact is unavoidable. I think people are maybe a bit more aware and if I knew a company was being unnecessarily wreckless I’d personally not give them a dime. Also this is what lawsuits are for. These companies should be sued into nonexistence.
Why are domestic companies forced to compete on an uneven playing field like that? Why are companies able to just go abroad and import at very favourable rates. That’s profoundly unfair … But have you thought about what would happen to the cost of goods if there was an equal playing field? All the worst things are still done they just happen elsewhere.
Everything is profitable if you raise prices. In a way you’re just offsetting a certain segment of the populations transportation costs to everyone else under that system. Maybe you could privatize the roads too and use the tolls to fund more buses which operate at a profit. Its fun think of insane libertarian free marker solutions to such problems :) Cars might be less appealing if people had to pay the associated infrastructure costs on a per km basis.
The reasons for farm subsidies are… Debatable. If you keep food cheap people don’t notice currency debasement as much. Personally I think it might make more sense for prices to rise to a point where farmers are profitable without subsidies. Those subsidies are value extracted from the tax payer anyway… You’re paying for it.
You’re right too in that buses and trains are a lot cheaper and should always out compete cars. How much do you think fares would have to rise to make public transport self sufficient ? Make it so it funds its own expansion and service improvement.
The Toronto Transport Commission is my local example. From what I can napkin math they get about 1 billion dollars in subsidies per year from the city (maybe some provincial and fed money too… I rounded up generously). They collect a little over 700k fares a day. Wouldn’t take much of an increase with like almost 250 million fares a year to close that gap.
Privatize the roads and have cars users pay their share of that infrastructure cost and get the burden off of working people and I bet a small share increase would be pretty affordable.
At this point probably everyone has had omicron or one of the later less harmful variants. The trend of becoming more transmissible and less harmful is normal for corona viruses. Im with most people in being apprehensive about getting additional boosters. Why do you feel there’s a real danger?
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I had a journey (lemmy.ml)
Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)
just wait, it could get worse.... (feddit.de)
I stand by... well... Myself (startrek.website)
The Whole Fediverse is Wholesome [fixed] (media.kbin.social)
“Both sides are the same. It is just a different perspective” (i.imgur.com)
What more need be said about it? (lemmy.world)
stop driving (lemmy.world)
A new COVID-19 variant has emerged. Here's what we know about EG.5 so far (www.ctvnews.ca)
The variant is called EG.5 and is a descendant of Omicron....
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AntennaPod is a podcast manager and player that provides instant access to millions of free and paid podcasts from both independent and major podcasters. Easily add, import and export their feeds using iTunes podcast catalog, OPML files or RSS feed addresses. Downloads, streams online or adds issues to a queue, with adjustable...