Trumps: White Angry Middleclass

[jp1]

AMTRAK, U S Postal Service, Securities and Echange Commission, FDIC, Environmental Protection Agency, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Federal Communications Commission. Transportation Safety Administration (Otherwise known as Bureau of Long Lines, Smoke and Mirrors.) Your turn.

I'm not sure I'd include the post office as a failure. If anyone honestly thinks that there's a private company out there who will deliver a letter to any address anywhere in the US for $.49, and to be able to do that while paying middle class wages and having the most overfunded pension in history I'd like some of whatever drugs they are taking.

But anyway, my point was simply that the government can, and has, done some pretty amazing large projects. Sure there have been failures. But to say that there haven't been major successes is simply not true.

[Zoe Girl]

The only reason pharmaceutical companies are getting away with the price increases is BECAUSE of the effects of government intervention in medical care over the past fifty years. Government has create the trough at which they feed. Don't you think things would be getting just a little bit better by now if government control actually worked? A return to true freedom to seek medical care on the open market is what we need. The only way to provide medical care as a "right" is by force...by oppressive beuraucracies, rationing and deprivation. We have been going in the wrong direction. We need a compass to get out of the woods, not more wandering around.

There is a lot of that, the government is involved, and in ways that support an unsustainable economy. I am not an expert but I am learning more and more.

[Ultralight]

Anyone ever read The Postman?

It made me want to be a mail carrier! And, it actually made me feel something I have never otherwise felt in life:

Patriotism.

The Postal Service is one of the best things America has done.

[catherine]

The only reason pharmaceutical companies are getting away with the price increases is BECAUSE of the effects of government intervention in medical care over the past fifty years.

To the extent that government is in the pocket of lobbyists I would agree with you. To the extent that we should just burn the barn down and start over, I would agree with you. But right now, I have no problem with government limiting the "how high can we go" profit-above-patients approach of some pharmaceutical companies.

[LDAHL]

I get that you are for the least government intervention as possible and let business do what they will. Just curious, what type of regulation do you support when it comes to business? Any at all??

Let's talk about a more complex issue: let's take one of our favorite topics: healthcare. TIME Magazine had an article that I was interested in reading because it's about my livelihood: marketing drugs. I hate to bite the hand that feeds me, but the article talked about the price gouging of pharmaceuticals. The main problem is that, according to one of the experts quoted:



There are a lot of reasons for that which I won't go into but how can you justify pharmaceutical companies getting away with increasing the prices of their medications by double digits EVERY YEAR? Just because they can? It's a horrendous abuse of the system. I know that they need to conduct R&D and they have to recoup their investment before patent expiry--I know that well, but should or should not there be limits to profits?

It makes me feel dirty being in this business.

I think there is a place for regulation, especially with regard to safety. I do suspect you and I would disagree on how much is enough, but that's what democracy is for.

As to something as specific as drug pricing, I agree that determining what is "fair" is complicated. I also suspect I'd be more inclined to choose free markets over a determination made by Time's "expert". Price controls have not had a very successful history since the Emperor Diocletian, so I'd probably be more inclined toward market pricing than you. On the other hand, health care in this country has been so regulated on different levels for so many years that you might be able to argue that we left free markets in the dust a long time ago. Perhaps the best we can hope for is trying to regulate more intelligently.

[Ultralight]

I think there is a place for regulation, especially with regard to safety.

Gotcha!

[LDAHL]

Gotcha!

Yeah. You got me. I'm not John Galt. I'm Lenin in a pinstriped suit because I think selling tainted drugs should be illegal.

[Ultralight]

...I think selling tainted drugs should be illegal.

Let the market sort it out!

[LDAHL]

Let the market sort it out!

You filthy capitalists are all alike. You don't care how the proletariat suffers as long as your retirement account keeps growing.

I can't wait for Bernie to take away your ill-gotten pelf.

[Ultralight]

You filthy capitalists are all alike. You don't care how the proletariat suffers as long as your retirement account keeps growing.

I can't wait for Bernie to take away your ill-gotten pelf.

You're cracking me up!

Did you hang around lefties a lot in college? You sure know how to ape us! Very authentic-sounding!