The parable of WidgetWise

Lets pretend that you own a store that sells Widgets. You have to make $1000 a day to stay in business. You can serve 10 customers a day, so you sell widgets for $100 each. Now, let's suppose that the government decides that everyone needs to have a steady supply of widgets, and starts a program called "WidgetWise". This program pays for widgets for people who , otherwise, would not have as many widgets. You think: "great! This will be really good for business". So, you open up your shop, and wait for the profits to roll in. You hand the new WidgetWise customers their Widget, and they give you "WW" number so that you can collect the payment from the government. You have seen four WW customers, when you notice the fine print on the WW card:

"Widget vendor must take this number for payment in full of $50, and supply the bearer with a Widget."


You can only see 6 more customers, and you have to make $1000 dollars today to keep your doors open. The first four "WW"customers only provided you with $200. What do you do? (here's a hint, 800/6=133)



This was the dilemma faced by health care providers when medicare came into effect. The liberal camp would have you believe that rising health care costs either have no cause, or are caused by "greedy doctors" gouging their patients for every last dime. So next time you hear The democrats shouting that the problem of the high cost of health care needs to be solved with a government program, just remember that before the last "government program" health care was affordable.

comments from another blog...

>>It’s something that has to happen. Americans are already literally dying in the streets due to the Status Quo. And Privatization-gone-amok.

It is Status Quo, but it is not “Privatization-gone-amok”. The government has its hands in it, in the form of medicare. That makes it “semi-nationalization-gone-amok”

To use an example from another thread:

In the “safeway” situation, the striking workers have a resource (their labor) that they are withholding from the store owners, in order to force a change in the valuation of that resource (the “market value”). If the government were to bring in labor (scab labor) from somewhere else, and charge less than what the striking workers were making in the first place, how effective would that strike be? Would the value of the workers’ labor go up (change)?

Now let’s substitute the players: The patients are the “workers”, The patients’ money is their “labor”, The cost of health care is the “market value” of the labor (basically, how much health care a dollar will buy) and medicare is the “scab labor”.

The medicare system (scab labor), at present, prevents any “strike” by the patients (taking their money elsewhere), from being effective in changing the price (”market value”) of the health care.

The only thing that makes a strike effective is the threat of losing money on the part of the employer. As long as the medical providers are getting that money from the government (in the form of medicare, or universal health care) they are not going to lose enough money to force them to lower prices. If you remove that stream of “public money” from going into the pockets of the medical providers, the only source of money left is the patients. The patients’ money supply will be a relatively fixed resource that different providers will have to compete for. This competition will drive down prices.

>>Since the Right Wing hasn’t anything besides “more Reaganite Bullshit” and “give the Private sector more Public Money” any policy which caters or compromises to that is going to be so insufficient that it would take nothing less than the most massive police state ever to hold the people down.

I agree there, that is why I suggest letting the “private sector” A.K.A. “the individual” keep the money he earns, and not funneling it (in the form of taxes) through the government which will care little where it goes, because government did not earn it. The government didn’t load the truck, or stock the shelves, or machine the lower gear casing, to earn that money. They just stole it from the workers who did all those things.

>>copy cat, YOUR side has had almost thirty years of almost complete unfettered access to the public money without public oversight, aka “government regulation”.

“my side” has had little or no control over policy since the Keynesians took over in 1913. I am a “Von Mises, Rothbard, Friedman”, kind of guy, not a Reaganite.

>>Thieves like Cheney and Bush and Wolfowicz have done what, exactly? to benefit the economy.

Worse than nothing, and the current policies will be even worse.

>>Yet we’re supposed to trust these bastards with more leeway, more money and less regulation? Fuck that.

I suggest trusting the government with as little money as possible. I suggest making the consumer the only source of income for businesses.

copycat

Entertaining the possibility...

I am trying to get someone to explain both sides of the fractional vs full reserve systems, and this is a place to ask my questions. I am willing to entertain the possibility that the fractional reserve system is not inherently flawed, and may be useful. I have invited someone from the fractional reserve camp who seems to understand both systems to explain some of the underlying concepts. I ask that there is NO FLAMING on either side of the issue, because it will add nothing to my understanding of the issue.

This post is for a specific user on another blog I frequent. You'll know if it is for you.

>>http://www.well.com/~davidu/extinction.html for loads of links to your ‘proof’, CC.




Using your own "proof":
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_938000/938038.stm

This article from 2000 says :

"A quarter of the world's mammal species face a high risk of extinction very soon, a conservation group says."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2000325.stm

This article from 2002 predicted "Almost a quarter of the world's mammals face extinction within 30 years, according to a United Nations report on the state of the global environment."

This last was in may of 2002, it is now july 2008, if 1/4 (%25) of the mammal population were supposed to be extinct in 30 years from 2002,then let's do some math:

If you divide the 25% by the 30 years the extinction is supposed to take, then you get .8% per year.

let's assume more animals will be lost in the later years, and fewer in the early years. so, let's cut that number in half (.4%). OK .4% x 6 (years) = 2.4% of the total mammal population should have become extinct in the last 6 years.

http://www.currentresults.com/Environment-Facts/Plants-Animals/number-species.php

This link puts the total number of mammal species at 5,416, and my research has uncovered numbers as low as 4600.

We will go with the estimate from your source.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/2/l_032_04.html

which put the figure at 5000 in 2001.

ok, 5000 x 2.4% = 120 species should have gone extinct since 2002.

ok, maybe they are taking longer than anticipated... let's divide that number in half.

so, can you find a list of the 60 species of mammal that have gone extinct since 2002?

I couldn't.


Remember, I'm using YOUR sources, and I'm "showing my work".

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Below are some of my own links.

http://westinstenv.org/wildpeop/2008/12/31/of-mice-and-caribou-and-men-and-wolves/

This article suggest possible ulterior motives and methods for promoting a "gloom and doom" approach to environmental science. (just follow the money)



http://sovereignty.net/p/land/kral-insect.htm

This article gives good arguments against the "biodiversity bandwagon".


copycat