I hate the way we structure our healthcare currently, saying that you'll never get buy in for something like the NIH when most points of contact people have with the government are currently mediocre to downright piss poor.
The state wants to take on the challenge? It needs to demonstrate better stewardship of the missions it already has shouldered. Bllame republicans all you want (they deserve it) but I've only lived in blue states and the DMV sucked in all of them.
The thing no one mentions when pointing to healthcare systems in other countries is it's paid for by everyone. Go to Germany and even the middle class barely net half of their salary. You think politically any party has a chance selling that tax structure?
You can argue like Bernie honestly did it'd be worth it but I hardly ever see advocates for it say as much (including in this piece). You can push the healthcare cost to the government balance sheet but it still must be paid.
After working for a state legislature for nearly twenty years I simply don't trust the state to be capable of reigning in costs. The whole thing will turn into the Pentagon with no capacity for any fiscal responsibility to it's core mission.
Worst unlike in the UK with its NIH, I don't see either party in the states able to keep from adding politics into it. Both the Republicans (abortion and now IVF) and Democrats (trans) can't help themselves into meddling.
After saying all I have I would probably support any change but saying that the pitch for such a change shouldn't be sold by asking for more DMV in our healthcare, it's to sell it as a boon for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Having it tied to employment was the best idea during the worst time. It's long since outlived it's original purpose and we should move on from it.
Finally it must get said, if poor healthcare outcomes gives justification for much of the country to tolerate (or worst celebrate) murder. Who would be the new sanctioned target in the better healthcare set up? The cabinet member responsible for administering this? Will we then get to write articles after she gets shot in the back saying, "murder is bad buuuuuuuut she did deny XYZ"? Will we get fan art celebrating children being raised without a parent? You can't go anywhere online without seeing depraved adulation for the alleged murderer. What's the lesson? If you get the right target half the nation will drop it's underwear for you.
Hard to see the social trust building anything off that rotten structure.
Jilani understands FDR. Very few people do. R and D have their own weird myths about FDR, equally wrong in different ways.
Something similar happened around 1880, without the help of government. Unions were JUSTIFIABLY pissed about rampant sweatshops, and rioted in some places. Fraternal Benefit Societies arose everywhere and grew fast to provide security for ordinary people. Then a few smart corporations started providing their own fraternal benefits. Weston Instruments and NCR started the trend, Ford picked it up, and others like Conoco followed. The movement was called Social Economics. In some ways FDR was just uploading the tenets of Social Economics and Fraternal Benefit into official policy.
It helps me to think of communism and fascism as symptoms of social diseases rather than cures, especially as their proponents make more and more elaborate promises about what they will fix.
But the question remains why we are so bad at just taking care of people.
A little appreciated aspect of what the New Dealer did was how they changed the way the economy operated, so that it naturally produced a more equal income distribution before any redistribution. I characterize this is terms of economic culture: https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/how-economic-culture-evolves
The way this works is primarily through taxes, monetary policy (balanced budgets) and some other things. Here’s a brief description of how policy affects the environment within which CEOs exist affecting their behavior and the cultural beliefs and norms associated with that behavior.
CEOs are incented through stock option compensation to promote increases in share price. With stock buybacks (legal since 1982) they have a second, direct way to increase share price in addition to the indirect route of increasing sales and profits. Figure 4 shows dividends and stock buybacks have steadily risen since 1980 and the stock market with them, showing CEOs have performed in accordance with their incentives. By doing so they have gained great wealth (a key prestige/status symbol) making them role models for other ambitious businesspersons. Economic conditions were conducive to the success of CEOs focused on shareholder value, who transmit their shareholder-focused business style to a new generation of executives. That is, the business environment selected for shareholder primacy culture in an ongoing process of cultural evolution.
The situation in the postwar era (New Deal economy)
CEOs could not employ stock buybacks before 1982 and had no way to access capital gains returns. Even if they had that option, they likely would not have pursued it as capital gains returns were often lower than ROE, averaging 3.3% compared to 4.7% for ROE. Bond returns averaged 1.6%, well below ROE, so the only game in town was productive investment. Not only that, but high tax rates constrained executive compensation, so there was no way for investors to incent them to focus on share prices. In this business environment executives invested in order to achieve performance objectives other than share price in order to beat the competition and “win the game” and achieving the prestige and status that make them role models. Economic conditions simply were not conducive to the success of CEOs focused on shareholder value. The pre-neoliberal environment selected against shareholder primacy culture.
Thanks for this article. It stimulated the following thought: I don't dispute the fact that the welfare state including FDR's program was inspired largely as a self-interested political necessity. Yet I think we ought to consider the ethical and practical implications of this view. The unrecognized implication of such a political vision of care is that makes violence and criminality a necessary condition for justice since if a people can be adequately subdued then their no longer exist the self-interested motivation of those with power and resources to provide the care. A healthier outlook would view our well-being as mutually interdependent. We would embrace Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's ethic of love, one shared by faith and secular humanistic traditions throughout human history, and understand that even in the absence of the threats of crime and violence we have an obligation care for human beings and honor their dignity. Arguably it is only in a sick and pathologically self-interested society that care becomes a mere instrument of crime and violence prevention.
I hate the way we structure our healthcare currently, saying that you'll never get buy in for something like the NIH when most points of contact people have with the government are currently mediocre to downright piss poor.
The state wants to take on the challenge? It needs to demonstrate better stewardship of the missions it already has shouldered. Bllame republicans all you want (they deserve it) but I've only lived in blue states and the DMV sucked in all of them.
The thing no one mentions when pointing to healthcare systems in other countries is it's paid for by everyone. Go to Germany and even the middle class barely net half of their salary. You think politically any party has a chance selling that tax structure?
You can argue like Bernie honestly did it'd be worth it but I hardly ever see advocates for it say as much (including in this piece). You can push the healthcare cost to the government balance sheet but it still must be paid.
After working for a state legislature for nearly twenty years I simply don't trust the state to be capable of reigning in costs. The whole thing will turn into the Pentagon with no capacity for any fiscal responsibility to it's core mission.
Worst unlike in the UK with its NIH, I don't see either party in the states able to keep from adding politics into it. Both the Republicans (abortion and now IVF) and Democrats (trans) can't help themselves into meddling.
After saying all I have I would probably support any change but saying that the pitch for such a change shouldn't be sold by asking for more DMV in our healthcare, it's to sell it as a boon for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Having it tied to employment was the best idea during the worst time. It's long since outlived it's original purpose and we should move on from it.
Finally it must get said, if poor healthcare outcomes gives justification for much of the country to tolerate (or worst celebrate) murder. Who would be the new sanctioned target in the better healthcare set up? The cabinet member responsible for administering this? Will we then get to write articles after she gets shot in the back saying, "murder is bad buuuuuuuut she did deny XYZ"? Will we get fan art celebrating children being raised without a parent? You can't go anywhere online without seeing depraved adulation for the alleged murderer. What's the lesson? If you get the right target half the nation will drop it's underwear for you.
Hard to see the social trust building anything off that rotten structure.
Jilani understands FDR. Very few people do. R and D have their own weird myths about FDR, equally wrong in different ways.
Something similar happened around 1880, without the help of government. Unions were JUSTIFIABLY pissed about rampant sweatshops, and rioted in some places. Fraternal Benefit Societies arose everywhere and grew fast to provide security for ordinary people. Then a few smart corporations started providing their own fraternal benefits. Weston Instruments and NCR started the trend, Ford picked it up, and others like Conoco followed. The movement was called Social Economics. In some ways FDR was just uploading the tenets of Social Economics and Fraternal Benefit into official policy.
http://polistrasmill.blogspot.com/2012/04/henry-wasnt-alone.html
It helps me to think of communism and fascism as symptoms of social diseases rather than cures, especially as their proponents make more and more elaborate promises about what they will fix.
But the question remains why we are so bad at just taking care of people.
A little appreciated aspect of what the New Dealer did was how they changed the way the economy operated, so that it naturally produced a more equal income distribution before any redistribution. I characterize this is terms of economic culture: https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/how-economic-culture-evolves
The way this works is primarily through taxes, monetary policy (balanced budgets) and some other things. Here’s a brief description of how policy affects the environment within which CEOs exist affecting their behavior and the cultural beliefs and norms associated with that behavior.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/what-is-neoliberalism-an-empirical#:~:text=is%20going%20on%3F-,CEOs,-are%20incented%20through
The situation since 1980, the Neoliberal Economy
CEOs are incented through stock option compensation to promote increases in share price. With stock buybacks (legal since 1982) they have a second, direct way to increase share price in addition to the indirect route of increasing sales and profits. Figure 4 shows dividends and stock buybacks have steadily risen since 1980 and the stock market with them, showing CEOs have performed in accordance with their incentives. By doing so they have gained great wealth (a key prestige/status symbol) making them role models for other ambitious businesspersons. Economic conditions were conducive to the success of CEOs focused on shareholder value, who transmit their shareholder-focused business style to a new generation of executives. That is, the business environment selected for shareholder primacy culture in an ongoing process of cultural evolution.
The situation in the postwar era (New Deal economy)
CEOs could not employ stock buybacks before 1982 and had no way to access capital gains returns. Even if they had that option, they likely would not have pursued it as capital gains returns were often lower than ROE, averaging 3.3% compared to 4.7% for ROE. Bond returns averaged 1.6%, well below ROE, so the only game in town was productive investment. Not only that, but high tax rates constrained executive compensation, so there was no way for investors to incent them to focus on share prices. In this business environment executives invested in order to achieve performance objectives other than share price in order to beat the competition and “win the game” and achieving the prestige and status that make them role models. Economic conditions simply were not conducive to the success of CEOs focused on shareholder value. The pre-neoliberal environment selected against shareholder primacy culture.
Thanks for this article. It stimulated the following thought: I don't dispute the fact that the welfare state including FDR's program was inspired largely as a self-interested political necessity. Yet I think we ought to consider the ethical and practical implications of this view. The unrecognized implication of such a political vision of care is that makes violence and criminality a necessary condition for justice since if a people can be adequately subdued then their no longer exist the self-interested motivation of those with power and resources to provide the care. A healthier outlook would view our well-being as mutually interdependent. We would embrace Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's ethic of love, one shared by faith and secular humanistic traditions throughout human history, and understand that even in the absence of the threats of crime and violence we have an obligation care for human beings and honor their dignity. Arguably it is only in a sick and pathologically self-interested society that care becomes a mere instrument of crime and violence prevention.