[ExI] Health system, again

[Samantha Atkins]

On Apr 13, 2008, at 4:33 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> On 13/04/2008, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>> On 12/04/2008, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> There is utterly no guarantee that the same would hold for
>>>> a far larger, much more diverse society with entirely different
>>>> government traditions. Cronyism and corruption have a much
>>>> longer history in the U.S. than in Australia if for no other
>>>> reason the U.S. has a much longer history.
>>>
>>> Have a look at this article:
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
>>
>> I have a suspicion that the index varies inversely with the  
>> percentage
>> of a country's wealth that is owned or controlled by the government  
>> and
>> how much government permission and favor must be sought.   If there  
>> is
>> nothing much in government hands to buy, bribe, enter into conspiracy
>> with government officials then corruption should drop rapidly.
>> Governments put the Mafia to shame and are often more ill-tempered.
>
> That's not how the list reads. Most of the countries near the top are
> high taxing, high regulation.

Then the benefits are at a high real cost.

> And I suspect that private enterprise
> corruption and inefficiency is directly proportional to government
> corruption and inefficiency.

Government officials are somehow less prone to corruption?

> Do you think the Danish Government is
> more likely to rip you off than a private firm (the only sort) in
> Somalia, the libertarian paradise?
>

Somalia is nobody's paradise and I refuse to converse would someone  
who would make such denigrating remarks.

- samantha