[ExI] those damn greedy workers

[Mirco Romanato]

Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto:
> 2009/6/17 Mirco Romanato <painlord2k at libero.it>
> 
>>> If people couldn't insure their homes and their cars, everyone would
>>> be more careful. Are you opposed to insurance in general?
>> I'm not.
>> But insurances must be a private enterprise, with a rational management
>> of costs and incomes. They must give a service and profit from it, so
>> they will continue to give a service in the future.

> The government insurer also tries to do this, and in the case of
> health insurance, does it more efficiently than the private
> alternative. This is evidenced by the difference in health costs and
> health outcomes in the mostly privately funded US system compared to
> the mostly publicly funded systems in other OECD countries.

The UK system went out of the budget from the first year it was 
implemented. They (the Labour) publicized the saving and then it never 
saved any money at all. This is the same in Italy. I don't remember a 
year when the Health costs were not over the budget. This is because 
these health systems are always on a "reform" stage.
Other health systems in the OECD are not very different.
So, how is that they are not able to respect their budget but they are 
so more efficient? Maybe they are not. Or maybe the efficiency is 
obtained in some other way.

For example, Italy have a number of physicians double than the US.
After taxes a family physician in Italy earn around 50K € where in the 
US he would earn 130k $. This is the double than in Italy.

Do you want reduce health care costs?
Having more physicians, so there is more competition.
But if AMA artificially limit the number of physicians that can enter 
the profession, the costs will stay higher (like in all monopolies 
supported by the government power).

So, you see, efficiency have costs. Someone must pay for it. Let it be 
the physicians, to start.

Then, we could talk about the drugs purchased in the public systems.
How the industries are forced to deal with a single buyer (a monopolist) 
that is able to force them is unequal deals. This have the consequence 
that the drug industries in the EU, for example, switched from research 
investments to generic drugs producers investments.

So you see, the efficiency here come at the cost of research and 
development of new drugs. In a long time period this will make a large 
difference as the drugs that are not researched and developed will not 
benefit anyone.

Economy, you must compute what is seen and what is not seen.

>> Governments and large bureaucratic companies like GM (without a real
>> owner) have not the right incentives to manage rationally the costs and
>> to plan rationally for the future. Their personal future horizon is 3-5
>> years, not decades. Why do sacrifice today when the profits will be
>> reaped by others? Why do not enjoy today and leave the bill to be footed
>> by others tomorrow?

> You have this the wrong way around: private enterprise generally only
> looks a few years into the future, while governments undertake
> projects that might not show a reward for decades.

This depend if you believe what they claim is their aims or watch at 
what are the real gains they can have.
Private firms owned by people with a large and long lasting stake on 
them often do  better.
Maybe this is because Fiat was able to take over Chrysler and GM was not 
able to take over Fiat.


> For example,
> governments may take measures to mitigate global warming, assuming it
> is believed to be a problem, which private corporations would have no
> incentive to do anything about.

In fact, they are acting without any hard proof, only "the consensus" 
(that don't exist) of the scientific community (not for sure of the 
climatology community).
They are sure to destroy large parts of our wealth for, at best, 
nothing. The Kyoto Protocols told this. All of the proposed curbing of 
CO2 would had slowed down the warming 3 years over a century.
This is scarcely a rational politics for the people, but it is very 
rational for the scaremongering politicians like Al Gore living in huge 
McMansion  and running around in private air planes.

> At best, a private corporation may
> invest in enterprises that would benefit from global warming, provided
> that the investment was going to show a return in a few years;
> otherwise, the shareholders would sack the board of directors for
> wasting money.

They would sack him if he went in this without their approval, and they 
would be right to do so.

There are many investors interested in doing research, but:
1) They invest what they are able to lose, not someone else money needed 
to pay for the shoes of the children or the loan on the home.
2) They, often, ask for proof of the work done and proof of the results 
obtained. They are willing to take risks, not to give money away for free.

>> Private markets punish people that don't plan well and reward people
>> that planned well. The alternative is, like today, to punish people for
>> good planning and rewarding people for bad planning.

> It certainly looks like you are opposed to insurance. To the extent
> that adverse events are under anyone's control, insurance consists of
> the careful subsidising the careless.

This is because insurances must be private enterprise not subsided by 
governments. So they will avoid to subside careless people and avoid to 
encourage careless behaviours.

Usually the government subsides do the reverse. And I'm against 
government subsides and insurances.

Mirco