1: Close the f**king borders.
Simple enough but then you have people that complain about the cost of a head of lettuce is now going to be $20.00. No, no it isn't. Why? Because the pay stays the same for the work. "But Americans won't work for such low wages." You bleat. Yes, yes they will. Why?
2: End the welfare system, ENTIRELY.
You want to eat, get a job or figure out how to produce enough food for yourself. And no, shoveling horseshit is not beneath you to do, nor is hauling slop buckets to the pig trough. I don't care that you were breast fed from the finest most voluptuous Scandinavian nannies until you were 20 when your parents finally had enough of your shit and tossed you out on your ear. Work or starve b*tch. But I also hear you say "But what about retirees?" I said end welfare, not Social Security. But, and this is a BUTT as big as Kardashian's. You get federal matching funds to what you paid in and no more. No pay in, no pay out. "But how is the government going to pay to match everyone's funds if everyone is working?" Simple.
3: All payments to foreign countries cease. All Foreign bases are closed and we don't step into shit that doesn't involve us unless a CLOSE ally is under threat and requests aid, which THEY pay for.
So simple a chimp could do it. But ACT NOW!!!! and get the added bonus of....
4: Re-instituted tariffs (and make em painful enough they'll question why they don't just do it here) on all goods coming into our market.
We use the fact we are the largest single consumer market on this rock to our advantage. Quintuple the amount if the company ever operated inside the US and moved off-shore for cheaper labor, karma is a real b*tch. But you say, "That will drive the cost of everything we have to levels we could never afford." Maybe in a broken system but no. Because, being that I like companies competing for my dollar, any company that doesn't want to deal with having to lose money to our new tariff system will be given a tax deduction for moving production facilities to the US. And that's functioning production facilities not staff offices. However, only the goods they produce here are exempt from the tariffs and qualify for the tax exemption, not all their goods. So that part is a good win-win, the government gets money that it doesn't have to raise taxes on us to procure and We the People get a source of jobs.
Plus to insure its all not to big a shock to anyone, and to tap into my lonely-unloved-unused leftish side and prevent the inevitable $20b Christmas bonuses to top execs who're now within microseconds of retiring at the ripe old age of 29.
5: Price caps.
"But that's not capitalism." You're right, somewhat, that part isn't capitalistic but is a tactic that works in favor of the consumer, ie: you and me. It also solves the problem of price gouging, mostly by people who don't know how to manage costs properly and are only interested in maximum profits at the expense of everyone else, "Because f**k the little people, I'm getting a Porsche". Kinda like welfare queens in that regard. However, I never said they can't make a profit, only that the prices for goods and services will be tomorrow what they were yesterday. Up to them to figure out how to maximize profits in that whole grey area I left open for them. Especially since the .gov isn't going to be using banks or regs to shut down businesses it doesn't like. Namely because such an offense would be grounds for a firing squad at dawn, for both the politicians and the bank managers and anyone else involved that stood to gain anything. Anyway if companies are smart they'll cut the numbers of VP of Bullshit #1, #2 and #3 etc. that they are paying for doing absolutely nothing close to productive. I'm currently paid to sit on my ass in an office and do nothing. Why is my job not in danger? Simple, I'm a security guard. I keep them from losing money due to outside forces. Its cheaper to pay me than to replace computers, heavy equipment, tools and various and sundry other things that may grow legs in the absence of company personnel or even in the presence of company personnel. To get back to my main point, because companies obviously need a lesson where they are hemorrhaging money. Hint: it ain't the workers on the line or in the cubicle making $30k a year that would be bleeding them dry. Anyway moving on, I love me some competition so that brings us to...
6: Government grants on completion.
Mostly because there is this whole risk/reward policy to get back into. For example: War material production. Used to be the government would send out guidelines for what they wanted, companies would risk money building prototypes for the .gov to test. Then a winner would be chosen and given a contract of a set amount for a certain number of complete units and sometimes a certain number of spare parts. Quite lucrative contracts too. However, usually a company wouldn't have the capacity to make what Uncle Sam wanted in the time allotted. Which is where the other companies in the process could recoup some of their losses. The runners up would sometimes be given a chance in adding to the production capacity. They get the plans and would build the winning design for a percentage of the contract. Not as lucrative as being the winner but they have to share that set amount of the pool and you also don't have entire companies folding because of one idea that while workable they still gambled on and lost, sometimes by a hairs breadth. However these situations didn't cost the taxpayer the current going rate of a $4B turkey or cancellation which seems to be the current DoD/private industry policy. As I stated, payment on completion with a fixed amount. You overrun the contract by a microsecond and we take the plans, tooling, completed components/units and hand em over to someone else to complete. Not to mention fine your asses for the full cost to us thus far for administering the trials, selection, and which includes the costs of taking all the stuff above and moving it around/storing it, plus interest. Not to mention firing, fining and incarcerating anyone at the Company/DoD/Congress/WH that allowed the BS to go on in the first place. Because after all We The People not The Company-in-Question nor the DoD/Gov are in charge of this military industrial complex and it is our money funding it, and I'd really like to see a 4+ billion dollar project show some sort of tangible result after 20 f**king years, even if it's just to watch it blow up a herd of
The biggest reason I can pin down that we have such stagnant development in medical tech the last couple decades (and probably beyond) appears to be due to the companies and labs doing the research are paid to produce nothing. They are given money without having to show any tangible results, only "progress toward a solution" or even worse "We developed a 'treatment' for ultra-deadly-virus-X2015Mk4 that only costs $mumble,000,000 per dosage and we hold the patent, So yay team us! Plus it only kills 3 out of 10 patients." I've got a simple solution to that problem, "I have a one time $2,000,000,000 check for the first person or persons who come out with a safe and effective CURE for cancer/AIDS/Ebola/insert random ailment here. You have 1 year to collect before the reward gets cut in half." I often wonder how many broken necks and sneaker fires would result in the rapid sprint for the finish line knowing this is the only money they are going to get for the project and every second wasted brings them closer to it getting cut by half, and then half again. That way they are looking at less money if they try to pull the same stall tactics as normal.
Either way, upon a solution and payout. The formula is then taken (remember it's already been paid for) and given to every supplier that can produce it and told "We'll cover production costs and assist in providing any raw materials to see to it that this gets to our citizens who need it in a timely fashion. And. Oh BTW, we know exactly what capacity you can churn out, so don't f**k with the numbers on it, unless you'd really like an open air jail cell in Alaska somewhere above the arctic circle for the next 400 years."
I haven't really found a solution to other, simpler medical costs other than to just do a massive price cut across the board and then cap them too. Then tell all the affected parties to "Pray I don't alter the plan further". Same with other areas that could use a monkey wrench to the testicles just for motivation. I'm pretty good with the whole Underpants Gnome system of;
Step 1:Collect underpants.
Step 2:?
Step 3: Profit.
Anyway, just a mental exercise searching for workable solutions to current problems. Ones that don't involve immolating massive piles of our money and being told to look at the pretty colors that were "given" to us. You may disagree, that's ok, if you have a better idea please share. How the hell else are we gonna un-f**k this giant steaming pile?
6 comments:
I know how we can fix the USA! We'll just point guns at all the humans, and under that threat of murder rearrange their economic lives to our perference like they were our very own tin soldiers to set up and knock down!
Wage and price controls were tried in the US by Nixon, and did not work for completely understandable reasons. There is a whole libertarian literature detailing why your plans don't work.
Hmmm, how to respond to the random babbling from my internets? I know, since it seems your main argument was use of violence, we'll start there. As I can see the only time I referred to violence was the firing squads. Lets examine that. My words were "Especially since the .gov isn't going to be using banks or regs to shut down businesses it doesn't like. Namely because such an offense would be grounds for a firing squad at dawn, for both the politicians and the bank managers and anyone else involved that stood to gain anything." those being for assholes that use tactics such as the (last I heard) ongoing "Operation Choke Point" to deny access to financial resources to businesses those responsible for the action(s) disliked. I fail to see the problem in that.
As for price caps across the board, well if you want to pay $40 for a can of soup or $40,000 for an ER visit for your kids cough then by all means be my guest.
Since you have proposed no other alternatives then pray tell, what would be your solution? As I stated I'm open to ideas.
Additionally, I fully love marketplace competition, however in the absence of same then that is were regulation needs to be. To prevent practices that are harmful. Currently the regs tend to make it more difficult to start a business than they are for overseeing current ones that the powers that be actually like. eg Fannie/Freddy. And the massive fraud that has been large segments of the "green" energy industry so far.
2 is a good idea.
1 not so much. *Secure* the borders, yes. But immigration should continue at roughly the same pace as it is legally now.
3 If you mean foreign aid, sure. Military bases? Unfortunately if suddenly our ally IS attacked, we will need that base there. So closing the bases isn't a good strategic idea.
4 No, this isn't good for us. This involves an economic concept called "comparative advantage", and it can happen even if our ability to produce every good another country produces is superior.
E.g. imagine we produce steel and oranges. Another country, say Kenya, produces steel and oranges too. Lets say that productive efficiency for both goods is staggeringly higher for us than it is in Kenya, but the Kenyans are much better at producing oranges than they are steel.
If we are *better* at steel than we are at oranges, then we should produce only steel and let the Kenyans make oranges. The reason being that we are concentrating our productive resources in the areas where they would do the most good, and so are the Kenyans.
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This is why you might hire someone to do a job that you are capable of doing, even if you are better at that job; the amount it costs you to hire them is less than the value of the time you would have spent doing the job.
I.e. if you are an engineer who makes $90 per hour, you might still hire an auto mechanic to fix your car at $20, because your time is worth at lot more than $20.
5 No, price caps DO NOT HELP. They have NEVER HELPED. You will not find a single example in THE HISTORY OF THE ENTIRE WORLD where price caps actually helped consumers.
They don't help because they short-circuit the price system. The point of the price system is to efficiently convey *information* to producers about how much consumers value one thing or another. They use this information to decide how much of one thing versus another to produce.
This is called "allocative efficiency". There is no substitute for the price system. None has ever been devised, and the kind of information that the system conveys is not the kind of information that could be had via formal surveys, because people are a lot more likely to lie with their words than they are with their pocketbook.
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Point being, every extended shortage in history is provably the effect of some kind of price control emplaced by the state.
Firstly, Whiteknight. I want to apologize for taking so long to approve your comment. Secondly I want to thank you for providing a well-reasoned response.
As far as it goes with the immigration issue, I don't have a problem with LEGAL immigrants, I never have. Mostly because I myself am a descendant of immigrants for the most part.
With foreign aid, I figure the bases we can't afford to close will go to the host country. The majority of our major bases around the world are jointly operated anyway so we aren't actually losing them just not staffing them.
Fourth point is where I started getting into the sticky subjects. Tariffs worked well for almost 200 years, but now? Suddenly they are verboten? I wonder why that is? We managed to produce everything we needed up until they started being eased or removed. Most of our manufacturing capability went overseas with the loss of tariffs on most imports. I know that part first hand, since my Mom lost no less than 3 factory jobs because companies moved their production overseas. So you'll have to forgive me if I have a bit of a hard-on for shitbags with no loyalty or patriotism, all in the name of profit. And don't forget the "fuck the workers" attitude that they all have. And that right there is what led me into the argument for price caps. Merely a stop gap way of filling the void til the free market can provide suitable competition to keep prices affordable.
Wanted to clarify about the foreign bases issue. Firstly, we can bring all our forces home as long as the host nation maintains the bases. Secondly, we only have a few allies in sticky locations with little to no support all but one of them in the Pacific. Israel being the outlier. Their closest support are NATO forces, of which we compose the highest level force, however they have shown on several occasions that they don't really need our help for the most part. But in a situation that they did, we have rapid deployable forces stationed here in the US for that reason. Plus we still have Carrier strike groups that are floating all over the world that can be on station in short order. Other allies like Japan and South Korea are in tougher spots but have shown their willingness to build up defensive forces that would be able to hold out until additional forces can arrive from Hawaii, Australia, etc. I'm less concerned about our eurosocialist "allies" since they have been bad mouthing us since we went in to iraq and then they decided they didn't need to adhere to their end of the mutual support agreements, fuck em. If they need help, tell em to ask each other.
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