Thursday, October 17, 2013

Eden's Economy

Let us pretend.  Let us pretend about an ideal economic utopia. 
What kind of people would we wish to be?  What would be our means of organization?  How would choices about resources be made?




A Thought Experiment

Imagine some future world where we have built robots.  

Lots of robots.  
Robots that act cleverly.   
Robots that crunch enormous amounts of data but do not think.  
Robots that can solve problems. 

Robots clever enough can build other robots.  
Robots clever enough to design other robots to do things.  
Robots clever enough to gather resources.  
Robots clever enough to transform those resources into goods and services.  

In this thought experiment, robots would do all the work.  
A human would never need labor except when she desired.
Every human want could be met.
Most human desires could be served.

In such a world, our desires would be limited only by the amount of resources available.




Economic Utopia

In such a Utopia words like "profit", "inflation", "wages", "debt", and even "money" would have no meaning. 
In such a utopia hard work doesn't mean much, as human labor would be unneeded. 
In such a system education would not be needed.
Some could say that the mythical Eden might have been like our imaginary economic utopia.   


Finite Resources

The only limits to our needs and desires would be resources.
The planet is only so big, the solar system has only such much matter and energy.
Like all eco-systems, eventually people and their desires would overwhelm the energy and material available.
Some kind of decisions would need be made to who gets the energy, who gets the material, how the resource is distributed.


Distribution Dilemma

So how then would we distribute the finite resources?  
What moral value system would we use to determine who gets goods and services? 
How shall we balance between need and desire?
What limits shall we place on humans?

If hard work has no meaning, what reason could be used determines who gets medicine?
If education is irrelevant, what reason could be used to determines who gets food?
Is how beautiful a person is the right way to divide resources?
Is how strong or fast or agile a person is the right way to decide who gets what?

What moral value system shall we use to achieve a just distribution?
What basis shall we use to determine what a "good life" is and reward it?


Economy Morality

While this thought experiment could probably never happen, it does illustrate what I think is a fundamental problem with many economic theories.

We, as human beings, seek each to have a "good life".  
Each of us may view what a "good life" is differently. 

Economics systems are only tools used by humankind to allow its individuals to seek "good lives".

Concepts about hard work, education, beauty, or strength are arbitrary ways to distribute resources, they are not necessarily the most moral means of distribution.

What ever economic system we seek, we should first and foremost have a moral code that values humans above all else.

The value of each human being ought outweigh the circumstance of their birth.
The value of each human being ought outweigh their beauty, strength, or lack of opportunity.
No system of economics which does not place morality at its core will serve its participants well.

It is in the best interest of the entire population of humankind to ensure a distribution of resources that works for the majority of the population.


Dismal Reality

To date, no one has come up with a moral economic system that actually works.  
Instead we trend between the extremes of "I got mine" or "Everybody gets the same".  
Both of these polar opposites are only vague approximations of moral distribution of resources.

I do not know the answer to how a moral economy could be achieved.

Capitalism, socialism, communism,laissez-faire, and objectivism all are only poor attempts at a moral economics.

Although many pretend; no one, in fact, seems to know the answer to this ancient puzzle of Eden.  

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Values Healthcare


Self reliance.  No cheating.  Free markets. These are core values most of us share.  
We need a health care system that works this way.
We have it right in front of us if we only reach out and take it.


Self Reliance

Everyone should take care of themselves. 
Self respect comes from self reliance.  
Self control comes from self respect.  
Each of should responsible for our own health care. 


No Cheating

People who don’t have insurance are stealing health care from those who do.  

Freeloaders without insurance are mooching on us in the emergency room.  
Everyone needs insurance to pay their fair share. 


Free Markets

Health care should be in a marketplace.  
A market where buyers and sellers can meet and do business.  
We need a market square where each of us can go to buy and sell health services.  
It should be fair and have open competition between businesses out in the plain site of all.
Free markets are not socialism or communism.  Calling a free health care market a "socialist takeover" is factually wrong.



Policing Required

Some people won’t pay for insurance unless some one else forces them.  
Someone must have the authority to intervene and stop this theft.  
We need a force that will police people to ensure they insure.  
We use government to do police work.  
Government should police healthcare too.



Where Can We Find This?

It is the basis of the Affordable Care Act, passed by Congress, signed by the president and upheld as law by the supreme court.

It is that law that we have come to call “ObamaCare”.

Self reliance.
No cheating.
Free markets.

These are value based conservative principals.

This is the core of "ObamaCare".



Ruin Our Country?  

Why do so many hate ObamaCare?  

How many would hate it still if it was called “RomneyCare”?

Taxed Enough Already?  Shutting down the government doesn't change health care.  Shutting down the government stops government spending.  Stopping government spending is about reducing the size of government.

Our current budget fight is about debt and taxes and freedom.  The decisions we make on health care should not be cornerstone of our budget fight. 

Playing with citizen’s health care as a political tool to win a budget fight is cynical and dangerous. 

The dislike for Obama is part of what is happening.  He is a black city democrat, a difficult pill for white rural republicans to swallow. 

Many do not like Obama and are searching for reasons to show why.  For five years there has been a general hope by some that Obama would fail.  Every opportunity for failure is explored in detail by TV, blog, and radio personalities. 

Dislike of Obama is not a wise reason to stop health care reform. 

Trashing the Affordable Care Act means we stay with the broken, un-policed, wealth destroying system we have now.  Does anyone seriously think this is a good idea? We as citizens must use our government to ensure our freedoms.  Some type of health care reform is required. 


Don’t Buy New, Fix It Up!

Health care’s runaway costs are a huge drag on our economy.  Allowing the current system to continue on will force more people into emergency rooms with responsible people footing the whole bill of the freeloaders.

Starting over from scratch with new senate and house bills would put a solution to our health care crisis out a decade or more.

Does the act have some problems?  Absolutely.  They can be fixed.  That is what we elect our lawmakers for; to keep markets free, to police bad people, and to enable self reliance.  These things keep us free.

Making laws is messy, difficult and even sometimes disgusting. If you stick with it good things can come at the end of your labor.  Throwing away the work done so far would be lazy and foolish. 


A Conservative Response to Liberals

Mitt Romney’s state governmental health care system in Massachusetts is an example Reagan’s “laboratory of the states” in action. 

Governor Romney’s plan is the basis for the Affordable Care Act.  His law was a conservative response in a liberal state that DID NOT PLEASE ANYONE when it passed. 

As time went by, modifications where made to the law and their state government system created a law that worked. 

It can take a couple of years of back and forth modifications, but elected government lawmakers CAN get it done.

That’s shocking let’s repeat it.

A Conservative law got passed.  Liberals modified it.  The law worked for the good of its citizens.

The opposite can happen too.  Liberals can pass a law that Conservatives modify that do good for citizens.


Drama For Obama

Hate for Obama has co-joined with a fight cutting spending to result in even good ideas being trashed.  Our anger and frustration is muddling our collective view of who we are and who we can become.

Is dislike for Obama worth trashing our country for?
Is the budget battle so important that we should not do basic policing functions?
Where have the rational adults gone?  
Where are the mature reasoned responses among our leaders? 
Our government has become a soap opera of political entertainment.




Some how we need to move beyond the fear, anger, hate, anxiety.  
We need to stop the artificial drama and move on.
We need to find our core values:


Self reliance.
No cheating.
Free markets.

And make it so.