Subsea is dead. Fracking is easy to start and stop with demand and its costs have gone down. Who is going to spend billions when you can have big volatility in price.
A great post, I really can't disagree with it. To me, there are three factors that go into any person's getting a good education: --decent learning environment (doesn't have to be Taj Mahal) --good teachers (don't have to be geniuses, empathy may be as important as intellect) --a student who is well fed, rested, and ready and wants to learn. It's the third aspect that no one looks at or talks about (beside school lunches etc), and I think it's arguably the most important aspect. You can't force an education on anyone. The student has to want it. This comes down to parenting. And I'm not sure how the government can, or even should, get involved in that, aside from teacher-parent meetings (which are important, but only go so far). So, back to the topic, increasing $ is not effective (or less effective) if the student does not want to learn, or is apathetic. That has to be from parents; it has to be cultural.
So tax cuts are causing services to decline. You think it’s a good thing schools are open for 4 days a week?
This is just flawed thinking. The premise in your argument is that the government would be 'shrunk' in the right areas, but in reality the shrinking is done at the expense of the people, while the politicians protect the interests of corporations and their big donors. For example, in Oklahoma, healthcare, education and law enforcement have been suffering while the same governor that got them into this mess is working with a business coalition to fix it - forgive me if I dont believe their solution is in the best interest of the people. The truth is that GOP policies are to the detriment of the people they govern, but unfortunately said people are too ignorant to see the truth. That is why Democrats are more popular among college educated people, while GOP is more popular with less educated people and in the rural areas. GOP preys on the ignorance of their constituents and thus never shy away from damaging or even crippling educational systems. An improved education and skill input would have allowed a lot of their constituent to remain viable as technologies evolved. But instead they failed them and sold the gullible on the notion that the jobs were taken away by immigrants. The reality is that the states with the most immigrants are the ones doing well. The retrogressive nature and damaging effect of GOP policies is clearly evident if one looks at the quality of the states controlled by the GOP i.e. look at wealthiest and poorest state and compare it to their political leanings. The liberal states like California, NY, Massachusetts etc are doing well, while staunch red states like Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Kentucky etc are in poor economic shape. It is arrant idiocy to think anyone would leave their country for a place where even the locals are struggling to make ends meet. Immigrants dream of places like California and NY not Mississippi or West Virginia.
There's a lot to get into here...but I'll just say this: Your premise is that the government does "good" for "the people." That's what the Dems want people to think, for sure. I'd say that's the flawed premise. Welfare, for example, just keeps people mired in welfare, while the entitlements just continue to grow. Oh and the federal government is $21 trillion in debt, and many states (like Oklahoma) are having difficulties with their budget, as this article makes clear. Some 61 municipalities have declared bankruptcy. The answer isn't more government. All big government does is create disincentives and inefficiency, while raising our taxes and raising the national debt. Bill Clinton said "The era of Big Government is over." Too bad it wasn't true. But I think, with that with the debt we have looming over us, some day it will have to be. The better option is to start cutting spending, scaling back benefits, and lowering taxes now, before some greater financial fallout occurs. If we want to save Social Security, for example, we will have to start cutting it back (reducing benefits, raising retirement age). It's inevitable. Better to accept it and start working on it now. Oh, and--reducing the police state is never a bad thing.
Bloomberg: Deepwater Oil Rigs on Brink of Recovery After Years in Doldrums Way too premature to call it "dead" as offshore drilling has benefited from technology bringing the costs down as well. These things are cyclical.
Read the beginning of the article, there is still a ways to go. We are at $75, some of these guys need $100 to make money. I shouldn't have said never because at some point they need to take what maybe the minimum loss
Of course it does good for the people. We actually need to do both with Medicare/pensions/SSN, put more money in and targeted reductions.
True democracy in its simplest form is 'a government of the people, by the people and for the people'. If the government does 'no good' for the people, then why have any government. After all, following your logic, less government is always better and thus no government would be the best. The notion of big vs small government is just political propaganda used by the GOP to push their retrogressive agendas. In truth what you have is not small vs big government, but good government vs bad government, and the quality of the government is more dependent on the quality of elected officials (and associated policies) than the size of the government. We have bad governments when we elect bad officials, and good government when we elect good representatives. Social welfare is an indirect tool for mitigating societal ills while law enforcement is a more direct approach. One can think of them as a pair of carrot and stick. Someone in poverty is more likely to turn to crime and other negative endeavors, or be exploited by other with more nefarious aims, and social welfare tries to take away the need to do so, thus lessening pressure on law enforcement. The efficient management of such programs depend primarily on the quality of the people in charge of it. Social security is out of control not because of the program itself, but the people we have managing it. Thus to fix it, you dont get rid of the program, rather you fire the bad managers. If your meal tastes bad, you simply find another chef/cook, but it would be stupid to go on a hunger strike for this. The proof of the pudding they say is in the eating, and some unfortunate folks have been eating the GOP pudding for too many years. The GOP has been touting less government for decades, so why are the states they control in such terrible economic state? If Democrats controlled states are doing better than GOP controlled states on average, then we can say that democrats policies are better than GOP policies for the economy.
Right, there are ways to go to recover but there is still over hundred billion dollars of global investment in that sector of the industry. Never say never.
I don't agree with a lot of this, but I'll give you this: your post is well reasoned and well written, which is a lot more than I can say about some other posters who favor the "progressive" agenda (I assume you are on this side). I don't have time at the moment for a detailed reply, but just for now I will say: I have never said that we should have no government, just that it should be scaled back significantly. There are a few things that are the proper role of government (examples: defense on the federal level; drainage districts, water/sewer systems on the local level). There are many more that are not. Lastly (for now), I just want to mention that I don't identify with the "elephant" party. (I favor the "porcupine.") The only reason I line up with the "elephants" in some cases is that the "donkey" party has lost its mind over the past decade or so.
But you are yet to provide evidence that scaling back would make things better. What we have evidence ofis that GOP controlled states, who share a similar philosophy, are doing much worse than other states. My position is that the role of the government should not be enlarged or reduced in any absolute sense, but that it should be modulated by the challenges facing the society at said point in time. For example, if there is a recession, it might be needed for government to take an active role in jumpstarting the economy (as they can take risks that private funds might shy away from) and when the economy has reasonably recovered, the government can pull out. On social welfare, (like I said before) it is a means of mitigating societal ills. The problem with our current system is that the way it is setup and the people managing it incentivize people to be dependent on it e.gt. section 8 beneficiaries would have their govt contributions scaled back as they earn more income, which essentially discourages such people from looking for employment (after all why should they have to work if its only going to result in less benefit). Wouldn't the logic change if there was a lifetime limit on welfare, dependency on prior taxes paid or any other modifications that would incentivize people to be more productive and less comfortable on welfare? We dont have such cos we keep putting the wrong people in office. On healthcare, one of the problems with Medicaid is that people often enter the program in poor health, mainly due to bad living habits and/or lack of healthcare that would have addressed minor health/lifestyle problems before they became major issues e.g. losing weight would address obesity before it becomes diabetes. A lot of this is cos people cant afford the cost of healthcare, with health insurance company basically controlling the system end to end. Prior to Obamacare, people were paying significant amount of money for little to no coverage, while insurance companies were laughing to the bank. The core of the problem is that our representatives were more interested in protecting the interest of those insurance companies than the people they were supposedly representing. That same reason was why Obamacare was destined to struggle if not fail outrightly. Other arguments for getting everyone access to affordable healthcare include the tenet of the health sector to administer treatment before payment. This has often led to a lot of unpaid medical bills which are eventually passed on to paying customers (increasing the cost of healthcare to those paying/insured). Another scenario is the communicable disease angle, wherein a parent decides against getting healthcare for his family, his kids gets an infection which goes untreated and eventually infects all the other kids in school. Now all parents of infected kids have to pay the price for one parent not having coverage. All this can be addressed by making sure everyone has access to healthcare. There are only two ways I can think of to achieve this: make it mandatory and have people pay out of pocket, or make it 'free' and the government provides it with tax payer money. I prefer the latter, as there are many other countries running similar systems with varying degrees of success, and thus we can learn from them and not reinvent the wheel. More so, we already have medicare in place. It is also amenable to private sector participation as the level of involvement of the government can be adjusted over time e.g. govt hospitals and/or insurance provides/covers preventive and basic primary care, while private sector picks up the heavier end of it. Unfortunately, as long as we remain ignorant, (compounded with the arrogant refusal to recognize our ignorance), the system will continue to decay. Politicians are no longer representatives of the people, and are currently no different from the european aristocracy that the system was meant to guard against. Its is funny how the US has become another 'Animal Farm'.
Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful reply. You won’t be surprised to hear that I disagree with a lot of it, but I do appreciate the civil conversation and debate. I can’t address all your points specifically (mostly due to time constraints), but let’s examine a few of them. In your fourth paragraph, you state that “healthcare would address lifestyle issues” and thus help prevent problems (I would assume smoking, overeating) before they become serious. But see, here’s the thing – you don’t need health insurance for this. Anybody with a reasonably functioning mind should realize that these things are bad for you (I say this as someone who likes cigars). You talk about healthcare addressing the problems that stem from obesity. Indeed, obesity is a problem, and it brings serious health issues. But again, you don’t need health care to learn to eat and live right. You need discipline and awareness – and these things are free. Moreover, I would doubt that “lack of education” is a problem here. People know that fast food/processed food/over eating are bad things – they do it anyway, because planning for your meals, and eating the right foods, and discipline and commitment to maintaining an exercise regimen are “hard.” You mention that “a lot of people can’t afford the cost of healthcare.” I actually don’t dispute this, and I also don’t dispute the idea that insurance probably causes as many problems as it solves. This is a larger issue than just healthcare (see: flood insurance), and it would take a much longer essay to address it. Back to the “people can’t afford” issue. Ok, why is this? I would assert that this is because people are choosing to work in temporary or part time jobs, or other jobs that don’t provide these benefits. Somewhere I mentioned the NPR report on the woman who was a musician who couldn’t afford healthcare, so she was in favor of Obamacare. But – she chose to work in that field, which historically does not provide good compensation or good healthcare benefits. That was a choice she made. Yet she wants to have her cake and eat it too. Here’s something else – does everyone really need healthcare insurance? I have a friend who is an entrepreneur. He doesn’t have any healthcare benefits. He pays cash (about $60 per visit) when he visits the doctor, which is only a few times a year. He lives right, eats right, doesn’t do anything stupid (smoke, climb rocks, jump out of airplanes, ride a motorcycle), and guess what? He doesn’t really need the doctor or health insurance. Why should he be forced to pay a healthcare tax for this, when he doesn’t need it? I could say the same for myself. Now, I have the more typical office job with employer-provided benefits. But my visits to the doctor are rare, just like his are. I often think to myself – why I am putting all this money into health care insurance? If I ever had the time, it would be interesting to compare how much money I am putting into this, with each paycheck, versus what I am taking out of the system. I suspect I am putting much more into the system than I am getting out of it. I sometimes wonder if it would be financially better for myself not to pay for the insurance, keep that money in my pocket, and just pay cash when I visit the doctor. I am increasingly hard pressed to wonder why I should be paying for that health care insurance. I don’t really need it. And that’s my point. If people need it, then they should buy it. But people shouldn’t be forced to buy it, as with a tax. If they don’t have the money to pay for it, to me, that’s on them. They need to throw their case on the charity of the community. And people are in fact beginning to do this, with GoFundMe pages etc. Here’s another problem, or case in point: we should not be so charitable at the emergency room. And I’ve seen what happens there, with my own eyes, a number of times recently, because my elderly father had a number of recurring emergencies. Now, when he went there, he used Medicare and his own private health insurance policy. He was about the only one there to do so. Many more were using it as a visit to the doctor. I saw people there who shouldn’t be there. They did not have an emergency. And in at least one case, a man my father shared a room with was there because he continually made bad choices about lifestyle. That was not an emergency. His crisis, such as it was, was the result of his lifestyle choices made over many years. Society should not be indulging or paying for this, in my opinion. I talked to my Dad about this topic when he was there, and he said: “I’m paying for everyone else here.” A bit of hyperbole, but not inaccurate. He seemed to be Ok with it. But I am not. I don’t want to be paying for everyone else’s lifestyle choices, and I shouldn’t be expected to. Here’s another anecdote. I have a friend that traveled to a foreign country for vacation. When he was there, a friend of his was in an auto accident, and required stitches to the head. But this person had no money for this procedure. My friend had to rush to the emergency room, and pay $50-$60 for the procedure. If my friend had not done this, his friend was not going to get the procedure. The hospital would not do it until they were assured of payment. Now this seems harsh, but I think we need to move toward this. If you can’t pay for the doctor, don’t go to the doctor. Don’t expect other people to pay your bills for you. A lot of our differences on this topic come down to the idea of whether you see health care as a right or a service. I view it as a service. To me, the reason one works and studies hard is to get that job with the good compensation, with good pay and good benefits. Now, somehow people have got it in their head that everyone should be entitled to healthcare as a birth right. Similarly, people are now arguing that everyone should get a basic income as a birthright (UBI). These are utopian beliefs, and will bring the same social results that utopian systems always do. If society keeps piling on taxes, mandates, and disincentives on companies and people who comprise the “worker/producer class,” eventually those workers say ******* it. “Why I am working to produce for everyone else?” Atlas Shrugged indeed. Then you have larger social breakdown than we are seeing already. People need to feel the consequences of their bad choices. Society doesn’t work otherwise. With regard to your point “politicians no longer represent the people/we keep putting the wrong people in office”: I don’t deny that large insurance companies almost assuredly have a disproportionate impact on our government and political systems. But to this, I would say: another problem is that we have politicians and bureaucrats that can’t say "no." Have you ever seen a congressional committee hearing about SS/healthcare/Medicare? They can’t even talk about slowing the rate of increase in healthcare spending. It’s politically impossible. This has been true (at least) since the early 1990s, and it was true again with the advent of the Trump administration. We need to have politicians that are brave enough to say “no” to all kinds of things. Otherwise, we end of up with $21 trillion dollars of debt, like we have now. Did you know that SS will not be able to fully make its payments starting in 2030 or 2035? I see many reports that say that (they’ll be able to pay about 79% at that time). The system we have is unsustainable, but the solution cannot be to expand government systems or taxes. Otherwise, the whole federal budget will be going to Medicare and SS. Is that what we want? I would hope not. Ok this essay is long at this point, so I will conclude by saying: people need to pay for their own stuff, themselves, without having taxes imposed on everyone to do it. If you don’t have the money for healthcare, you need to throw yourself on the charity of your community. If you can’t pay for your kids' healthcare, don’t have kids – or go without healthcare. If your community does not care about you enough to help, that says a lot about the person(s) in question. Now, all of this leaves out the question about why are medical services so expensive, but that would take another essay. [wow, this was a whole lot longer than I expected.]
1. (Not meant as a jab) My observation from many of your posts is that you tend to look at issues as if everyone is similar to you. This (IMO) is a flawed way to analyse public policy or societal wide issues 2. The notion that "anybody with a reasonably functioning mind should realize that these things are bad for you" is flawed cos while it works for some, for others the advice, monitoring and guidance of professionals are required. If what you say is true, these things would not pose the challenge that they do. Many people struggle with it even with help, while most cant deal with it on their own. That is why drug addicts, alcoholics etc need support systems to help them kick their habits - a reasonably functioning mind does not suffice 3. The cost of healthcare in the US is higher than in most other developed countries. Even if you can afford it, you are are paying more than you should 4. Life is a pyramid and everyone cant get high paying jobs even if they desired. Yes, there might be some who could do better for themselves, but for most people their current situation is a result of many factors (place and family of birth, education, opportunities, etc), many of which are beyond their control. The US income distribution is skewed towards the bottom and this is an inevitable consequence of capitalism and reality - few are successful at the expense of the many. When you lose out in the competition, the choice is no longer yours to make. 5. I would like to first distinguish between healthcare and health insurance.Health insurance is definitely not needed and is currently necessitated by the high cost of healthcare.But I do think everyone should have basic healthcare. The argument follows the basic logic of most societal welfare service i.e. direct vs indirect cost (e.g. do you pay an unemployment compensation or wait to deal with the possible criminal activity that usually follows unemployment and poverty ) If people dont have basic healthcare (either by choice or forced by circumstance), everyone (including those who have) will likely pay for it in the long term e.g communicable diseases spreading, unpaid hospital cost passed to paying customers (like your dad), or even lost productive time when the person misses work). If the system is setup and managed properly, then the per capita cost should be minimal compared to the alternative. A lot of countries are doing this with significant success and cant all be stupid. 6. What you see is in the ER is a consequence of the messed up system. Many go to ER cos they can get treatment before (and possibly never paying).The idea of requiring payment before treatment in an ER brings to the fore many other issues like viability and ethics e.g, patient cannot represent himself or have anyone that can do so, do you then let him die? How does that coordinate with the responsibility of the providers and malpractice suits? I have seen systems like that and they dont work well. 7. When it is optional, we had about 75% of people insured, with some uninsured by choice. If mandated, the burden on people already paying would likely be less than 10% increase (please note that the increase in premiums with Obamacare was more due to people who had previously been denied coverage getting coverage and treatment. This caused a huge spike in cost for insurance companies and premium were raised to meet that expense. Premium are expected to decrease next year and would probably continue to decline as the society get healthier). 8. I have coverage and only do my routine physical but would rather not be paying for all those people who opt not to get coverage. I support having basic healthcare available for all not cos I am so generous but cos I feel the cost to me would be less than the current scenario ( I would rather pay a part of another's premium than the very high ER bill). You pay for it one way or the other. What you are proposing is what we had before and currently have, and it hasnt worked out for us yet. On the other hand, we can see an alternative solution that is working for many other countries, so why not give it a try? Seriously doubt it could be worse than the current. 10. Politicians do not respond to the people cos the people do not penalize them for it. So many people vote on party basis and never seem to care what the party/politicans have done for them. Which is why I cannot understand why some states/areas remain faithful to the same party, even with the continuous decay of their quality of life. If politician know that they would not be re-elected if they failed to deliver, then they would be more responsible. The corporations are only there to take advantage of the opening left by the people - after all corporations dont vote. I guess some of it is due to ignorance, but I cant think of what makes up the rest.
