Wisconsin's governor: Protest end of labor contracts, I'm dragging out the Guard

The problem is that it's impossible for everyone to be rich.

And, the left won't be happy until we have income equality and we're all poor.

 

I disagree with that. I think everybody was pretty happy in the '50s and '60s when most of us could afford a nice house in the suburbs, one car (which was all that was needed because Mom didn't have to work to make the ends meet), a summer vacation to the beach and health care that didn't cost hundreds of dollars every time you walked into the door of a doctor's office. Oh, and most of America had a real pension then, one that guaranteed you a certain amount of money monthly when you retired.

 

There's a lot of problems with that, but I'll start with healthcare.

If the current medical options were available in the '50's, the costs would be much higher.

The current costs are related to the progress that's been made. We have drugs, surgical procedures, and medical devices that prolong and improve people's lives. They are also very expensive.

 

Come on, dude. Don't be intellectually dishonest. Wealth inequality is a huge problem in this country, and the gap is growing. CEO's used to make like 13 times what their employees make. Now they make hundreds times more what their employees make.

No one wants everyone to be poor, and to paint the monolithic "left" that way is completely intellectually dishonest on your part.

You are usually a really rational poster who comes from the right. But you have allowed yourself here to get goaded into personalizing the attacks against your preferred political party and making some pretty sweeping generalizations that undercut anything constructive you are trying to say.

 

This isn't really true - other countries do just fine keeping costs under control. But I don't have the time or energy to devote to a fully explicated post on the matter right now. I'll do it later today, possibly. But it's not true.

 

To illustrate Dick's and Magic's points:

 

OK, so would someone please explain to me how there's a government solution to the problem of wealth inequity that doesn't include the government picking winers & losers?

I'd also point out that wealth inequity is much more sever in countries that have government controlled economies rather than market based economies.

 

What you call "picking winners & losers" I call "correcting flaws and inefficiencies in the marketplace."

Cite?

 

My solution is now and always to improve public education opportunities for the disadvantaged. This is the government in its classic role of correcting an inefficiency in the marketplace. Inefficiencies in the marketplace frequently occur because parties do not have to internalize some of the costs of their actions. They impose externalities on others who are forced to bear the burdens of their actions while they reap the benefits without having to pay their full share. The result of the externality here is poverty, and redistributing wealth into educational improvements for disadvantaged people help correct a flaw in the marketplace: As the lower class becomes more educated, the wealth gap - which is a result of a market flaw to begin with - will lessen.

The government isn't picking winners and losers in this case. It is restoring equilibrium in the marketplace that would occur anyway if the imposing party were forced to internalize the costs of its own actions instead of pushing them on others.

 

China, Saudi, Egypt.

The less Democratic (Russia) and capitalist a country is, the more concentrated the wealth is.

 

Any Western Democracies?

 

What do you mean?