Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

[Serge_Tomiko]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

A world-wide integration of human activity is forming increasingly quickly. In someways it's ugly and alarming, in other ways it is unifying and awesome. But in any case, it's the formation of an increasingly elaborate layer of supra-human activity which we are only just beginning to understand.

Yet we cannot even have a truly rational debate on the matter, outside of discussion forums like this.

Why do the powers that be not only assume this is inevitable, but desirable?

Acceptance of what you describe has almost become a religion of the ruling class.

[Diarmuid]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

Certainly the state level deficits are terrifying and getting worse; coupled with the federal ability to print money - a potential permanent shift in roles/responsibilities may be at hand.

Unfortunately the result is still an extremely high government chunk of spending as part of overall GDP.

Robert Welch may have been right or wrong on the underlying causatives and motives for policies as yet to be enacted? but surprisingly prescient in his predictions and potential impacts.

[sunskyfan]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

I have been watching, listening, and reading Buchanan for 30 years now. He is one of the best analyst in the business. His challenge is when he mixes faith in with his analysis. The danger of faith. I speak from the libertarian left and think he is a good man. His occasionally unvarnished truths may trouble some but he clearly loves his country and gets things correct most of the time.

[jneal3]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

Robert Welch may have been right or wrong on the underlying causatives and motives for policies as yet to be enacted? but surprisingly prescient in his predictions and potential impacts.

Wow.

So the John Birch Society is to the budding (hopefully?) grass roots revolution against the FIRE oligarchs/politicians what the fringe gold-bugs were to EJ? (that is, EJ used reasoning and data to back up what was initially just doomer fear to accurately predict the future) I never really believed in all the 'rise-of-the-demagogues' talk, but this has made me see the possibility.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

You may be right - due to your prompting I looked at the sources listed for usgovernmentspending.com (US Budget, US statistical abstract) and the numbers listed in the sources are consistent with a 17% to 20% range as opposed to the 25% to 45% range on the web site.

I have sent an inquiry as to why these are different, but my suspicion is that the USgovernmentspending.com site probably includes other government spending such as state budgets.

However even in the 17% to 20% case - the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late '80s certainly should have seen some type of 'peace dividend' compared to the '60s; the '60s had such high profile events as the Moon landing, Bay of Pigs, etc with of course the Vietnam war bridging to the '70s.

Either way the resolution of this discrepancy certainly has an impact on my understanding of the past.

The present and near future, however, will see the US government spending clearly exceed previous bounds under either the 17%-20% (to 25%) or 25%-35% (to 45%).

Indeed you are correct here. The debt load will be enormous as will the entitlement load. I do fear that discretionary spending will continue to shrink as these obligations increase to create the spending ranges of 25-35%.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

Steve,

Thank you for taking the time to lump all Americans into a single category. It certainly makes things easier. What other categories could we possibly come up with? How about arrogant cheese eating pacifists for the French or hippie, pot smoking liberals for Canadians (or their xenophobic franco-phile cousins in Quebec), or overly polite English folk with bad teeth and poor culinary skills. Yes, that certainly simplifies things. It's also extremely insulting to everyone involved.

Just so you know, the largest single cause of bankruptcy in the States is due to medical reasons. This is the true even among those with extremely good insurance coverage. Nothing can wipe out a lifetime of savings quicker than a serious illness or prolonged hospital stay. Yes, there are certainly those who overspent and overindulged and are now in serious financial trouble as a result. They certainly deserve what they get. However, they are a small but overly exaggerated minority.

The uneducated poor have also always existed. Interestingly, I used to know a business person whose clients included some very well paid athletes. His comment was that some of them were so stupid they couldn't even balance a check book. Yet, they were millionaires. If it weren't for their athletic ability, they would likely be standing in line somewhere for free medical treatment or going to Tea Parties. Without the athletic talent, they would be digging ditches for a living. Don't ask them to understand money, or become an engineer, or to debate the finer points of foreign policy. It's not their cup of tea (so to speak). However, many of these same type of folks bust their ass day in and day out to pay bills and don't ask for much in return. As long as you are working (or looking for work), living below the poverty line is not a crime last time I checked. Call them anything you like. Just don't call them leeches.:mad:

Let's try to keep the conversation intelligent next time and avoid the stereotypes. K?

I am not stero-typing Americans. Merely, I made a comment on some of those who attended tea-party revolts againsts the public option to buy into Medicare at age 55.

Don't I have a right to comment on those who were on TV, day after day, during 2009 in revolt against the Obama healthcare reform? Don't I have a right to observe and comment on these idiots?

And the poetic justice of it all is that these same idiots now will have to buy healthcare insurance from the most expensive providers possible: the for-profit private health insurance industry. These idiot protestors killed the public option ( including their own option ) to buy into Medicare at age 55.

Ah, but these idiots don't want to pay. They would rather leech and pay nothing, forever...... That is not a sterotype of what is going on; that is exactly what has been going on in America for decades. Even hospitals and doctors are fed-up with this abuse of emergency rooms.:rolleyes:

Let's tell the story the way it really is!:rolleyes::rolleyes:

[ASH]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

I am not stero-typing Americans. Merely, I made a comment on some of those who attended tea-party revolts againsts the public option to buy into Medicare at age 55.

I was suspicious of the plan to allow people to buy into Medicare at age 55, but did not see any quantitative details about how the buy-in value was to be priced, so could not reach a definitive conclusion. This is now an old issue -- killed, I think, by Senator Lieberman -- but if anyone can point me to a quantitative cost analysis of that proposal, I would like to see if my suspicion was justified.

What worried me about the idea is that current Medicare benefits are projected to become unsustainable in the near future, and offer medical practitioners unattractive compensation, so it seemed like we were talking about adding more beneficiaries to a broken system in need of a root-and-branch overhall. On the other hand, if the fee required to buy-in accurately reflected the costs of providing care, then it would be a fiscally neutral option, and one could hardly object. What I would like to have seen is a cost analysis of the proposal that projected the composition of participants, and the cost of providing benefits based upon patient composition. Also, a plausible narrative about how Medicare could be restructured to be sustainable would have been required to garner my support for the proposal.

[c1ue]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

What worried me about the idea is that current Medicare benefits are projected to become unsustainable in the near future, and offer medical practitioners unattractive compensation, so it seemed like we were talking about adding more beneficiaries to a broken system in need of a root-and-branch overhall. On the other hand, if the fee required to buy-in accurately reflected the costs of providing care, then it would be a fiscally neutral option, and one could hardly object. What I would like to have seen is a cost analysis of the proposal that projected the composition of participants, and the cost of providing benefits based upon patient composition. Also, a plausible narrative about how Medicare could be restructured to be sustainable would have been required to garner my support for the proposal.

ASH,

Even a theoretically cost-neutral buy-in would likely not reflect the reality of the present medical system.

If you recall from numerous examples - the prices paid by Medicare for specific services is heavily suppressed; the net revenue paid out however seems fairly constant.

What most likely would happen is that one set of medical needs (and associated present Medicare payments) will be used to determine the actuarial price, but the actual Medicare payments as actual medical needs are met will be distorted via various methods.

The problem as I've outright said many times is that both the actuarial and the delivery side of health care are broken. Any 'reform' which only pretends to address the actuarial side - even without the health insurance industry's machinations - is doomed to failure.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

Let's cut-to-the-chase or cut-to-the-bone of the matter: How do you, Ash or C1UE, plan to pay for healthcare when you are older? Door #1 is the private for-profit health insurance system, and Door #2 is Medicare? Which door do you choose?

Medicare (Door #2) means you have to buy into the plan at age 55. That means about $50 or $100 per month in health insurance premiums that you will have to pay--- something like that. But medicare works because it supresses healthcare costs by dealing in bulk numbers of people.

Door #1, private health insurance, means that you will pay at least $600 per month in health insurance premiums to a private for-profit health insurance provider, and on top of that, you will certainly be billed for all kinds of co-payments and prescription costs.

And then there is Door #3, the door which most opponents of the Obama health reform initiative have heretofore chosen: to pay zero and just show up at hospital emergency rooms when they get really sick or injured. (This is the leech off of the healthcare system option.)

I don't deal in actuarial studies or complexities of economics: I deal in realities. And the realities are that the system is broken because leeching off of the healthcare system is no longer an option. So that leaves either for-profit private health insurance (Door #1) or buying into Medicare (Door #2)..... It is just as simple as that.

And since the idiots ( the tea party protestors ) were opposed to a public option to buy into Medicare, then they have made their decision: The idiots chose Door #1.

It is soooooooooo lovely: The idiots will now have to pay-thru-the-nose for private for-profit health insurance.

As I said, Americans are now going to get the reckoning that they deserve. I love it.

Why couldn't Nancy Pelosi and Obama just spell the issue out in simple terms, the way I spelled it out above? There was nothing complex about this health reform issue except to call-a-spade, "a spade": The system in America is broken because leeching off of the system is no longer an option.

[ASH]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

That means about $50 or $100 per month in health insurance premiums that you will have to pay--- something like that.

What you describe is exactly what I was afraid of -- numbers like $50 to $100 per month don't reflect the cost to provide the care.

The healthcare provided by a private sector plan is paid for out of member premiums; the healthcare provided by the Medicare program is paid for from the sum of member premiums and big government outlays. If the buy-in to the Medicare system was really going to be $50-$100 a month, then that assumes a major expansion of government spending in order to provide the care.

[c1ue]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

I don't deal in actuarial studies or complexities of economics: I deal in realities. And the realities are that the system is broken because leeching off of the healthcare system is no longer an option. So that leaves either for-profit private health insurance (Door #1) or buying into Medicare (Door #2)..... It is just as simple as that.

The choices are not restricted to the two you've laid out: private health insurance or Medicare.

As I've repeatedly pointed out - every single other 1st world nation and most 2nd world nations are able to offer a basic level of health care...including Canada where you are living now.

All of these other nations also have private health care/insurance available should their citizens choose to purchase them - some countries like Finland have a majority of citizens on private health care plans despite the national health care, some countries have almost no citizens on private health care.

What I alluded to was that Medicare itself is distorting the system - the scenario is quite simple:

a) Medicare negotiates prices as it is the largest single buyer of health care
b) Providers feel they are losing money due to Medicare's practices, thus either add extra (higher margin) services to compensate, or raise prices for non-Medicare customers, or refuse Medicare clients over a certain percentage, or some combination of the above
c) Private health insurance companies don't care either way: their customer base is quite clearly divided from the Medicare crowd. Absolute profitability is only slightly affected by a somewhat shrinking customer pool as well as rising costs. So long as they can skim their management percentage from the cash flow it all works out because the aforementioned dynamic also prevents competitors from springing up.

The point you may not care about is that the entire system is breaking and will not correct:

i) Medicare extension literally will become nationalized health care but without the ability to actually provide said care. You still pay via various taxes and increases in provider costs.

ii) Private health insurance costs will equally break the system - the ever increasing costs and resulting smaller base will in turn drive more people into the 'charity' camp as well as increase insurance costs for those still able to pay. You also still pay because of more 'charity' as well as general decrease in quality of living.

So if you choose to play into the game as set forth by the players, then your stance is understandable. But the physics of the situation aren't the same as the 'house' rules you choose to operate under.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

Maybe so...but I think that an integration of human activity has been occurring at a pace quicker than we'd like to realize for quite some time - perhaps the whole of human existance. We have more data now, for sure, but the technological, financial and demographic changes caused by the bubonic plague in the 1340's and 50's was bigger by far than our technical revolution. All in the same 20 year period.

Change has been with us a long time, as you note. I agree.

Something is integrating a new level, a new layering, of structure in human civilization these last few decades. It's a layer that existed only in a protean, fragmented form until recently.

Life, structure, ... forms layers. The completed entities of one layer form the atoms of the next layer. The rules of one layer are irrelevant to understanding the next.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

If we are to believe progressives however, then what are we to do when technological advancement allows ALL humans to be free of work?

We don't know. We humans are not limited by our technology. We are limited by our understanding.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

We have millions upon millions of people who serve no economically productive purpose, and consequently live completely empty lives devoid of any meaning or purpose.

Life's purpose should not be confused with economic productivity.

In a way, that is what those who have turned to Ministries of God are telling us.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

Yet we cannot even have a truly rational debate on the matter, outside of discussion forums like this.

Why do the powers that be not only assume this is inevitable, but desirable?

Acceptance of what you describe has almost become a religion of the ruling class.

I would put it differently. I would suggest that the world wide integration of active human awareness is happening, for better or for worse. As usual with new human capabilities, the insiders, the ruling class, get there first, and use the new capabilities for their own often nefarious ends. But it is the same integration of humanity that has such great potential for beneficial results.