Undermining a favorite Republican meme...as seen on facebook

[TahitiNut]

26. That''s a cogent and rational summary with which I fully agree.

It seems to me that it's absolutism that fails... some simplistic imposition of a 'rule' completely throughout the system, whether that be "free markets are the answer" or "private ownership is bad." It seems to me, for example, that insurance is best established at the common or public level for those risks which are universal, such as threats to health and the need for care both preventative and corrective. For those risks which are associated purely with choices, such as automobile ownership and operation, a regulated free market (since unregulated is NEVER free) offers the most viable approach. The most harmful (to the public) factor in private insurance today seems to me to be sheer scale and the massive economic clout wielded by companies with huge reserves, much of which are leveraged.

The component of our economic system that most cries out for public regulation is labor, imho. While we do have a federal statute that prohibits the treatment of human labor as a commodity, the violations are rampant. Human trafficking, for example, which I regard as including all "work visas" that permit such human trafficking to operate under the guise of legitimacy, is a worldwide scourge. Likewise, the presumed theory that "compensation" for one's labor must only be based on the supply/demand calculation and 'competitive' lowest cost is a huge example of where human labor is treated as a commodity, since the very vocabulary and mechanisms for determining that compensation are solely those associated with commodities. The evil can bee seen most clearly in the use of the term "compensation" itself, since it does not, in any way, factor in such intangibles as the loss to a family of the time spent by a 'provider' or the loss to the laborer of time possibly more beneficially spend obtaining education or rest and recreation.

In summary, I believe we have a long way to go in gaining (or regaining) a more equitable and just balance between the health of a society and the power of wealth. A very long way.

The mere fact that a single individual can amass a fortune greater than the combined wealth of 50% of the entire population of a nation is, to me, prima facie evidence that the 'system' is serious out of balance. Broken. The mere fact that this is not only not seen as prima facie evidence by so many and, in fact, is seen as some kind of 'good' by so many is an indication of how far away we are from achieving any acceptable balance.