Thread: Obama won re election

Don't forget that the republican party insulted every group of people but the whites.
and possible even some of those people.
You cann't insult people then think they are going to vote for you.

They did? What did they say?

Originally Posted by DaveW

I suppose some of it has to do with spending your capital to advertise and build a business base only to compete against someone who can easily subsidize their business without care about reserves or regulation, and who at the same time can write the rules.

I can't think of too many businesses where the government grants themselves the right to compete with business.

Just look around and think for a second and you'll find plenty of examples.

Let's start with the closest to the current topic, insurance - FDIC, bail outs of big institutions, disaster relief... Then consider banking itself, investments....

Next the business of war, traditionally government dominated, but private armies are nothing new in far as well as very recent history. Related to this is security and 'law enforcement', plenty of private and government participation, then there is the penal system - apparently lot of profitable opportunities in there as well.
Not too far is providing security around the world for any big business that can afford the lobbyists.

What about education, r&d, transportation (railroads used to be private enterprises which put the 'corporation' on the map), communications (things even in the US constitution).

Finally, lobbying and advertisement. I know most americans are informationally sheltered, but the bulk of the US diplomacy deals with drumming up business for US companies.

That's what I can think off the top of my head, and if you consider the scope of the US military which is government run you will find that under its umbrella the government does an enormous amount of very diverse business.


And of course, by definition ultimately the government writes the rules and changes them all the time. If you want fixed rules you'll have to set up a different government system without a legislative branch.

All of the things that you mention are things the government takes on because they are either not economically feasible or because the risk in them cannot be defeased. They are taken on by the government, because no private company will do them. Private companies will provide services to those agencies, but they will not bear the risk that they bear or the up and down cycles that they bear.

Right, but if you take the position that the government should only do the things that are unprofitable for a private entity (or unprofitable if that private entity stops externalizing the costs), then you have already made the case that pure capitalism is not the solution to all problems.

And without ideological posturing it's easier to look at what can be done best by the government, what can be done best by private individuals or businesses, and what needs collaboration between them. I have the feeling that most everything would fall in the last category, but I don't have any data to back that up.

At the end of the day I simply don't buy the argument that I hear from the ultra right wing about a choice between freedom and doom.
This country, along with every other developed one is already set as a social democracy and that's the society we'll have for at least another century. The question is how to improve it and efficiently deal with the various problems.
I think ultimately the solutions are nothing revolutionary or exciting. Most of it centers around money, so financial responsibility is where it'll end one way or another.
Social programs will have to be cut to size - people live longer and are healthier longer, so they have to work longer; everybody ultimately dies and the resources to prolong their life are limited.
The same goes for the military - US, and any other country for that matter, can not afford to dictate terms everywhere in the world, so best restructure the military to have capabilities reflecting the actual security threats.

As far as the economy goes, the reality is changing very fast, so adaptability is critical. The jobs of the past with mediocre level of skills won't provide decent standard of living, only the jobs requiring high level of skills will. The growing economic disparity means that sooner or later the distribution of the generated wealth will have to change. What I mean is that increasingly the generation of wealth is dependent on pre-existing accumulated wealth. This is simply unsustainable as we know from several thousand of years of history.

I don't think anyone has ever said capitalism is the solution to everything, especially items that can't be run as a legitimate business due to sparseness of cash flow, uncertainty or extreme risk.

So, what is the argument against the government getting (more) involved in the healthcare business?

I think everybody agreed that the socialized system US had wasn't working well, certainly did not compare well against the government run systems of other developed countries.

I didn't agree, in terms of the quality of care, it's better here than anywhere else in the world *if you can pay*. That's not really debatable, speed of care is faster, too.

The reason it's not a necessity that the government gets involved as a provider is there isn't anything about the business that can't be done by private companies. The risk is spread homogenously and is insurable, the coverage horizon is short. It's not like flood insurance or FDIC insurance, etc where the frequency of payment is low and catastrophic on a pooled level.

The things where a government monopoly is granted are in place due to a circumstance that they need to be, and the circumstance isn't just to get you, as the consumer, something cheaper.

Originally Posted by TrilliumLT

At least this time around Oboma has the senate on his side so he can make the changes.

Obama had the Senate majority for his first four years. The Republicans hoped to change that this time around but too many of their candidates got "hoof-in -mouth" disease that the turn-over did not occur. What Obama lacked the first four years and still lacks this time around is a majority in the House. So it seems, the gridlock remains and it's politics as usual.

Randy

Originally Posted by gugi

But again, after the first debate he got a pretty good bump, so if the economy didn't show good signs that may have been enough. After all that was the central premise of the Romney campaign - the economy is getting worse and worse due to Obama, hence he had to go.

The economy was at its death knell when Obama came into office thanks to Bush the 2nd. Only by persistent maneuvering against a House controlled by Republicans was Obama able to eek out the meager gains which are just now showing. Had he been given bi-partisan support instead intransigent politics, our country would be doing far better than it is now.