OT: A real libertarian speaks

I don't have much to say about it. It's a very cool thing that Paul Allen put that much money into something that wasn't a straight business deal or a charity, but rather a pump-priming for new developments in technology.

I'm glad he did it, but I don't know enough about the guy to say any more.

Ed Huntress

Mike,

Please, DONT ENCOURAGE him!!!

Wow. Very nicely stated. Where did you say you went to college?

MM^^

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 14:31:38 GMT, "Ed Huntress" calmly ranted:

Sounds good and I found one in my local library. What's your take on his chapter "Removing Government from Economic Life"? (Amazon's offer to "look inside this book" was too much to resist.)

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Ok. Just for you, Ed, I'll try to order a copy tonight, and I'll put it on the top of my pile.

Yes, I'd need numbers to go any further than a discussion of basic principles. That's why I didn't. But I wasn't trying to say that government spending on "poverty" is up, or down, or whatever. My main concern is something more fundamental: Poverty has come to be defined in any way that the vote chasers care to dream up. That means ANYTHING is fair game as an excuse to tax and spend. Whether or not we experience the worst symptoms at any particular moment, the disease itself is growing and metastasizing.

You're a good listener. We should appoint you as official group therapist.

KG

I didn't. They made me promise never to tell.

KG

Well, Gunner, count me twice. This whole debate, which I've followed since the start, has given me goose bumps.......

I probably know your ex, playing in a pool league, living in Bksfld, and all........What's her name?

Your situation is more typical than than the thesis writers would care to admit. It happened to me, too..

What's the worth of a former VN vet? One who has seen more combat, has more scars, and one who won't take anything from anyone?

I did the best I could. I got educated. I got jobs, many jobs. Some even paid well. But, the medical scene changed. No longer could I write a check to the doctor for $45. Now, it's "what is your insurance?", and it's only $3400 for this test we think you need. "Hell, no, I can't pay it. And....I won't do it because I can't pay it." This happened only in the last 15 years, I think.

So....f*ck it. I need a few operations to stay alive. And no, I can't afford it. And so, I've decided to die and be done with this piece of shit country I killed so many for. You have chosen your path, Gunner, and good luck with it. I've chosen mine. Maybe in a few decades, the politicians can get their head outta their respective asses and get some medical reform here, too, like the rest of the civilized world. Got to MX for drugs I need and can't afford? Screw the system that demands it!

MM^^

Heh heh heh!

Twice the bandwidth consumption, without typing a single extra word. I guess I'd better keep the verbositizer well oiled.

KG

And MM thought you went to college.. Modern technology ain't it great.

John

I think part of your problem is where you live. Here in the Seattle area, we have some people who are newly rich and some who are fairly recently rich. Lets see. the sisters who had one of the first TV stations in Seattle. They also had a classical music station. They turned that over to a foundation that uses all the profits to help the arts.

The Bloedels who turned their home and grounds over to a foundation that keeps it up and promotes it as a place to visit. You can take a tour on their web site. They also gave a bunch of money to the Univ. of Washington. And who know maybe even Harvard. Mr. Bloedel was a graduate of HBS.

Then there is Paul Allen, who is doing various good things.

Bill Gates active in vacinations in Africa amoung other things. He was nearly a Harvard graduate.

I could mention several others that are well off as a result of working for Microsoft. But if they really wanted you to know that they would have told you.

My friend, John Rudolph, not very rich but a Princeton grad. He was one of the three that started the BPAA observatory here on the island. Now they are trying to get a planetarium here. John got this started, but died so the task has been passed on to others.

I would say that newly rich around here are about as nice a group as those that aren't rich. Maybe a little nicer.

Dan

There needs to be a safety net to catch those who try and fail. And also help for those that for some reason can't try.

But I am not thrilled with those that don't think about tomorrow and spend every last cent they make while they have a job. And then have a run of bad luck and think they ought to be helped. Or those that decide to do seasonal work and want assistance during the winter. Or Union workers that go on strike and want to collect unemployment. And the guy I know that got laid off and decided to collect unemployment instead of really looking for a job. Right after his unemployment ran out, he started looking. Lined up a job with Boeing, but then Boeing had a hiring freeze and did not hire him.

Dan

I'd have to go through it point-by-point to explain what I think about it, and I don't think anyone here has the patience to listen.

Overall, I think that's the weakest part of his program. His examples are not good ones: for example, there was an accelerating trend toward regulating safety in the workplace before OSHA was enacted, and that trend, rather than OSHA itself, combined with increasing sympathy by the courts for claims of harm for negligence in workplace safety, parallels the decline in workplace deaths.

Murray has too much faith in the tort system. Imagine the tourist operators in New York's Adirondack Mountains individually, or even as a group, trying to sue power-plant operators in Ohio and Indiana for acid rain, and the resulting loss in their property values. As I thought about examples under Murray's system, I could see an abomination of lawsuits trying to replace a much smaller number of regulations, such as the ones limiting smokestack emissions.

Ed Huntress

Again, this is something that you'd really have to analyze closely, with numbers and real examples, to judge.

It sounds like a common perception. I'm doubtful that it's a reality. I don't see much evidence that people at the bottom of the payscale are being given big advantages, anywhere. Unless you have zero income, or close to it, you're cut out of most of the programs.

And many of those zero-income people are getting far less than they were in the early '90s. Welfare got quite a shock under Clinton's policies.

But all we get here is perceptions and selective examples. For the country as a whole, you'd have to do a close analysis.

Ed Huntress

Importantly, he's specifically spending money on the development of medicines for diseases that only occur in poor countries, which means that there's no incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop the drugs, as there are no wealthy people to sell them to. The world needs more rich people like Gates -- and if a government or two were to join forces with him, so much the better.

-tih

Well, he could *buy* a couple of governments without much strain, so he really could handle it all through subsidiaries.

Ed Huntress

He already did :-)

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 14:31:38 GMT, "Ed Huntress" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Why?

Because he's a libertarian.

The "of course, no" wasn't my judgment. It was my comment about his. I should have made that clear.

Ed Huntress