"Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments



On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 21:41:51 GMT, "steve" <[email protected]> wrote:

>6. Get Govt to regulate your competition to thier disadvantage.



Capitalism thrives on competition. It's difficult for small
businesses to compete with a big company that does the same thing. But
this is how the system is supposed to operate. You have to compete or
perish. The things you have to watch out for are monopolies and
cartels. This is nothing new, Wal-Mart is just the latest in a long
history of large retail operations threatening small businesses. In
the 1950s, it was Woolworth and Kresge. But they moved into town
instead of to the mall outside of town. Same thing with the big
drugstore chains. They took over years ago. A few independent still
survive if they can find a niche or offer something that the big
stores wont. Many times, the small business that Wal-Mart kills is a
smaller chain store.
 
On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 23:24:34 +0100, Simon Brooke
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Here in Old Europe, of course, the rest of humanity /does/ step up to pay
>for your education and health care, and takes care of your kin.


I'm not sure how long that's going to last.

And, when you say health care, if you mean the British NHS, it hardly
qualify's.
 
Jack Hollis wrote:
> On 20 Aug 2006 18:32:43 -0700, "Ron Ruff" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >Of course the great majority of "players"
> >lose... but the illusion persists.

>
>
> Tell that to the Koreans in NYC. Now there's a group of people who
> know how to make the American dream work.


So what? It is the nature of our society that some will "succeed" and
some will "fail". The problem is that our *collective* standard of
living has been declining for 30 years. This especially worrisome when
you consider that we work many more hours than we did then, and back
then nearly all the products we bought were designed and built in our
own country. Now the great majority are built by 50 cent per hour
slaves in China or elsewhere. Is this progress?
 
In article <[email protected]>,
"Ron Ruff" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Jack Hollis wrote:
> > On 20 Aug 2006 18:32:43 -0700, "Ron Ruff" <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >Of course the great majority of "players"
> > >lose... but the illusion persists.

> >
> >
> > Tell that to the Koreans in NYC. Now there's a group of people who
> > know how to make the American dream work.

>
> So what? It is the nature of our society that some will "succeed" and
> some will "fail". The problem is that our *collective* standard of
> living has been declining for 30 years. This especially worrisome when
> you consider that we work many more hours than we did then, and back
> then nearly all the products we bought were designed and built in our
> own country. Now the great majority are built by 50 cent per hour
> slaves in China or elsewhere. Is this progress?


Careful, Ron. Greg White may yet lurk...

--
tanx,
Howard

Never take a tenant with a monkey.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
 
Howard Kveck wrote:
> Careful, Ron. Greg White may yet lurk...


But if you can persuade him to use AOL he might use up all their bandwidth
so we get less dupedcyclists.
 
Bill C wrote:
> Yep crank up the tarriffs on imports, screw over the developing world,
> keep the jobs home at high wages.
> Protectionism and smashing hope in developing countries rules. Keep
> the western wage scale falsely high through cutting off the poor in the
> rest of the world!


You seem to believe that the off-shoring of our production and services
is some sort of altruistic gesture by the US's largest corporations...
rather than the means for them to increase their profits... at our
expense.

And is it really helping those developing countries? China is the
prefered location for production, mostly because they have a huge
surplus population that is willing to work for super low wages... and
it will be a very long time before there is pressure for the wages to
rise. So for the next few decades at least the Chinese people will be
very poor. Other countries like Mexico are worse off. There was "hope"
that low cost manufacturing and exports would improve their living
standards, but now they can't compete with China!... so they are
screwed.

And then there is the US. I wonder what we are going to do a few years
from now when our currency is no longer worth anything... so we will no
longer be able to import... and our industrial and technological base
has completely disappeared. Welcome to the third world...

BTW, the US and many other countries never went through a period where
they were a low-wage exporter to wealthier countries... so how did they
manage to progress and build their economies?
 
in message <[email protected]>, Jack Hollis
('[email protected]') wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 23:24:34 +0100, Simon Brooke
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Here in Old Europe, of course, the rest of humanity /does/ step up to
>>pay for your education and health care, and takes care of your kin.

>
> I'm not sure how long that's going to last.


Remember: it's significantly cheaper to run - Britain spends
significantly less of GNP on health care - than the US. If it breaks
down - and it isn't going to happen any time soon - that will be because
of political buffoonery and incompetence, not because of anything wrong
with the concept.

> And, when you say health care, if you mean the British NHS, it hardly
> qualify's.


You wouldn't say that if you'd ever used it. I've used it all my life; I
have never had less than first-quality service.

Oh, and that's 'qualifies' not 'qualify's'; but then, in Britain, we have
publicly funded education, too, so we actually learn things.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/


... a mild, inoffensive sadist...
 
On 21-Aug-2006, smacked up and reeling, Jack Hollis <[email protected]>
blindly formulated
the following incoherence:

> >6. Get Govt to regulate your competition to thier disadvantage.

>
>
> Capitalism thrives on competition. It's difficult for small
> businesses to compete with a big company that does the same thing. But
> this is how the system is supposed to operate. You have to compete or
> perish. The things you have to watch out for are monopolies and
> cartels. This is nothing new, Wal-Mart is just the latest in a long
> history of large retail operations threatening small businesses. In
> the 1950s, it was Woolworth and Kresge. But they moved into town
> instead of to the mall outside of town. Same thing with the big
> drugstore chains. They took over years ago. A few independent still
> survive if they can find a niche or offer something that the big
> stores wont. Many times, the small business that Wal-Mart kills is a
> smaller chain store.


You're good at missing the point, my friend. Wal-mart is threat to small
businesses because it delivers goods more cheaply and efficiently. That
enables low income people to live better. The nature of increased economic
efficiency is employment displacement in the short run, but general standard
of living improvements in the long (and it isnt so very long) run.

As a general rule, however, the regulation game isnt so much the little guy
vs. the big guy, it's generally big corporations and whole industries using
regulation to thier advantage...airline vs. airline, US car companies vs.
foriegn, railroad vs trucking, cable TV vs. satallite dish, Netscape vs.
Microsoft...and that isnt competition, it's economic thuggery.

steve
--
"The accused will now make a bogus statement."
James Joyce
 
On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 10:08:50 +0100, Simon Brooke
<[email protected]> wrote:

>> And, when you say health care, if you mean the British NHS, it hardly
>> qualify's.

>
>You wouldn't say that if you'd ever used it. I've used it all my life; I
>have never had less than first-quality service.



You've got to be kidding. The NHS is a disaster. Basically, what you
have in Britain is health care rationing. If this was not so, you
wouldn't have waiting lists for medical procedures and hospital
admissions.

There are highly effective drugs that are not available in the NHS
because they're too expensive. The NHS has a formula for cancer drugs
which is based on the average time the drug is expected to add to a
person's life. If the cost of the drug, per year of expected addition
to life span is too high, the drug will not be approved.

Rich Brits, who can afford private insurance and health care opt out
of the system and the very wealthy will leave the UK entirely if they
have serious health problems.

I would never live in Britain because of the poor quality of health
care.

The NHS will only get worse as the British population ages and needs
more and more health care. Privatization is the best solution.
 
in message <[email protected]>, Jack Hollis
('[email protected]') wrote:

> On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 10:08:50 +0100, Simon Brooke
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> And, when you say health care, if you mean the British NHS, it hardly
>>> qualify's.

>>
>>You wouldn't say that if you'd ever used it. I've used it all my life;
>>I have never had less than first-quality service.


> You've got to be kidding. The NHS is a disaster. Basically, what you
> have in Britain is health care rationing. If this was not so, you
> wouldn't have waiting lists for medical procedures and hospital
> admissions.


I use it, regularly; you've read about it. Which of us knows it better?
Yes, I'm currently waiting two months for a non-urgent operation. That
isn't a problem; it's efficient use of resources. Last year when I broke
my back (in a cycling accident, to get back on topic for a moment) and
needed intervention that day and a month's in-patient care, I got it, no
questions asked.

> There are highly effective drugs that are not available in the NHS
> because they're too expensive. The NHS has a formula for cancer drugs
> which is based on the average time the drug is expected to add to a
> person's life. If the cost of the drug, per year of expected addition
> to life span is too high, the drug will not be approved.


Yup. True. Do you think your medical insurance will buy you those drugs?
For how long?

> Rich Brits, who can afford private insurance and health care opt out
> of the system


No, I don't. Yes, I could afford it, but where's the benefit? Why pay for
something that isn't as good as what you get for free?

> The NHS will only get worse as the British population ages and needs
> more and more health care. Privatization is the best solution.


I will say this again, very slowly: Britain spends considerably less of
GDP on healthcare than the US. Why? Because public health care is more
efficient and cheaper than private health care.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

[ This .sig intentionally left blank ]
 
On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:58:04 +0100, Simon Brooke
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Yes, I'm currently waiting two months for a non-urgent operation. That
>isn't a problem; it's efficient use of resources.


No it's rationing.
 
On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:58:04 +0100, Simon Brooke
<[email protected]> wrote:

>I will say this again, very slowly: Britain spends considerably less of
>GDP on healthcare than the US. Why? Because public health care is more
>efficient and cheaper than private health care.


And a lot worse. You get what you pay for.
 
Simon Brooke wrote:
> I use it, regularly; you've read about it. Which of us knows it better?


Yes, there is a well funded campaign in the US claiming that we have
the only decent health care in the world... and that public health care
everywhere is a disaster. Canada especially, since they are right next
door... but every Canadian I've talked to (dozens) loves it!
 
Jack Hollis wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:58:04 +0100, Simon Brooke
>
>> Yes, I'm currently waiting two months for a non-urgent operation. That
>> isn't a problem; it's efficient use of resources.

>
> No it's rationing.


It would only be rationing if there was sufficient capacity for Simon to
receive the operation now but the supply was being artificially
restricted. I don't know what operation he's waiting for, but I'd be
pretty surprised if that were the case.

Jack also huffed:
> You get what you pay for [with respect to health care].


http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/scpo/exp-percap.png
 
On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:58:04 +0100, Simon Brooke
<[email protected]> wrote:

>> You've got to be kidding. The NHS is a disaster. Basically, what you
>> have in Britain is health care rationing. If this was not so, you
>> wouldn't have waiting lists for medical procedures and hospital
>> admissions.

>
>I use it, regularly; you've read about it. Which of us knows it better?



My information is a bit old, but I used to work with a British
physician who had his MD from the University of London. He did his
surgery residency at the University of Toronto. He then ended up in
Boston, where I met him. This was 20 years back, but he described the
state of British medical care as primitive compared to the US. I take
his word for it because he knew both systems intimately. Of course,
his experience in the US was in top teaching hospitals associated with
Harvard Medical School, but if your a citizen of Boston and you have
insurance, or you're on Medicaid, these facilities are available to
you.

The big problem with health care in the US is that not everyone has
health insurance. However, this is not true in practice. If you
don't have insurance you can go to the hospital ER and get treatment.
Then the hospital will send you a bill and if you don't pay it,
nothing happens. You can even go back to the same hospital again and
again and still get treated.
 
On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 15:05:37 GMT, "steve" <[email protected]> wrote:

>You're good at missing the point, my friend. Wal-mart is threat to small
>businesses because it delivers goods more cheaply and efficiently. That
>enables low income people to live better. The nature of increased economic
>efficiency is employment displacement in the short run, but general standard
>of living improvements in the long (and it isnt so very long) run.


I agree. Wal-Mart provides advantages to hundreds of millions of low
income consumers. This advantage more than compensates for any
negative effect it has on small businesses.

I didn't mean to be critical of Wal-Mart (although they do have a dark
side) but rather point out that competition is a good thing even if it
means some businesses are swamped.
 
On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 15:05:37 GMT, "steve" <[email protected]> wrote:

>As a general rule, however, the regulation game isnt so much the little guy
>vs. the big guy, it's generally big corporations and whole industries using
>regulation to thier advantage...airline vs. airline, US car companies vs.
>foriegn, railroad vs trucking, cable TV vs. satallite dish, Netscape vs.
>Microsoft...and that isnt competition, it's economic thuggery.


Anyone has the right to sue over unfair competition. Microsoft has
had their wings clipped a number of time by the courts in favor of the
small guy.
 
Jack Hollis wrote:
> I agree. Wal-Mart provides advantages to hundreds of millions of low
> income consumers. This advantage more than compensates for any
> negative effect it has on small businesses.


I'm all about efficiency, actually... since doing the most with the
least amount of man-hours is what determines the collective wealth of a
society.

The thing that sucks about Walmart (and other large corporate
retailers) is that profits end up far removed from where the stores are
located. This isn't a big deal in bigger towns and cities, but in small
towns it tends to suck the life out of them. Instead of profits going
to local owners who spend it in the community, the money goes to large
stockholders far away.