Words, Meanings, and Spin

In regard to Trump's recent statement on "Getting Tough with Democrats"....

Recently, Trump mentioned sending Bikers after Democrats. In a nutshell, It all depends on whether the bikers are law abiding or not. But how would you feel if Obama had endorsed a biker group? I know many peaceful biker groups. Yet, the image of bikers leans to modern day outlaws.

Words have meanings and harmonics of meanings. Trump knows this, and ignores the harmonics when acknowledging them doesn't serve his purpose.

As for me, I've learned to recognize when he's speaking to his choir and when he's spouting BS that are blatant lies, but reinforce the falsehoods his followers believe.

For example: Whether or not one believes his wall is needed, one can see the falsehoods in his justifications. In a recent speech, he talked of "thousands, millions" coming to the Mexican border. Even in these caravans, we're talking in the LOW thousands, not the millions. He'll stretch a number without regard to reality, and people eat it up. His followers don't care whether the number implied is true or not. They care that it reinforces their beliefs that we're being invaded by hordes of foreigners.

Trump has violated the social and political norms which normally hold a leader in check. The GOP has been emasculated by the mob, as the primaries gave Trump a legitimacy that he never would have been given in normal times. The gate keeping function of the electoral college hasn't worked from the beginning of our republic. As a result, we were ripe for a corrupt president to be elected by the "unwashed masses" (social term, not a literal term) who speaks the meta language that they want to hear, but doesn't deliver the things the common people really need.

I suggest that one do two things before making your next support of Trump. First, watch the first 15 minutes of "Triumph of the Will" which explains the humiliation of a Central European people in few words, then presents the imagery of a false messiah who promises deliverance from suffering. Then read the first 50 pages of "How Democracies Die". And finally, ask one's self, do you recognize a pattern here? No matter what you believe in regard to Trump, and no matter whether you acknowledge what you really feel to others, if you don't see what is going on, acknowledging the truth to one's self, your opinions are meaningless drivel and part of the overall problem we all face.

Please note that everyone is entitled to his or her view. But if one can't acknowledge that the other side also has its points and discuss them fairly, one's voice is meaningless spin and can easily be ignored as it is only spouting useless propaganda....

Some impromptu thoughts on healthcare and the United States

I started writing this entry because of a post I read about Canadian health care....

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Let's strip away all the political rhetoric and look at the facts. For goods and services whose demand can be affected by external factors such as cost (i.e. elastic demand), markets are the best way to allocate resources. Health care (a product with inelastic demands) does not behave this way, as no one bleeding to death will ask how much does it cost for a doctor to fix me? For goods and services like health care, other, more efficient methods have to be devised to best allocate resources.

Let's take away from our argument the idea of charity hospitals and doctors practicing without regard to money. The number of these people and organizations is shrinking, as states have allowed medical organizations to be profit making organizations. This has led to markets being used to allocate resources where markets are not the best way to allocate resources.

In a society that values human life more than ours, people's lives are maintained without regard to market forces. The individual receiving health care is not part of the market. So, how is care allocated? In the US, we used to have organizations called HMO's. But even they were affected by markets, and limited care when care was needed.

Many developed nations, such as Canada provide health care services with a fixed amount of money allocated for care in each province's budget. People get to see their doctors by appointment (usually more often than in America). Care provided has been vetted against "best practices" and drugs/procedures which provide the most bang per buck are usually chosen to reduce costs. In areas where there might be inflexible demands, such as needing heart transplants, they prioritize recipients of care to those who would get the greatest statistical benefit from that care. This means that a 40 y/o man might be selected for a transplant over a 90 y/o man. This takes market forces out of the decision, and allows care to be provided without regard to a person's wealth or lack of it.

America has distorted the use of markets so much, that many of us fear what might happen if we move some goods and services out of market place allocation of these goods and services. The experiences we've seen in foreign lands shows us that costs can be reduced by taking things out of markets. In fact, we're now seeing medical "tourism" where many Americans are flying to Europe and Asia for non-emergency procedures. There are many procedures that cost half as much when done in Europe than when done in the States. In Asia, the costs are even lower. And, quality is similar (or better) than what one finds in the States.

The drawback - no one likes being a gate keeper. No one likes having gate keepers. And non-market systems require gate keepers. Who wants to hear that a $500,000 procedure won't be performed that could add another year to your 90 year old grandma's life, because society has chosen to fund a rural clinic that provides 10,000 people with essential health care?

Being a decent human being means making choices. Canada and most of the developed world have made good choices. America  doesn't yet make that many good ones....