The Price of Milk
My dad used to angrily shout “Did you see the price of milk?” Those greedy bastards raise the price so they can gouge us. He would then approach what appeared to be a store manager and ask “Why the price increase?” Clearly he was on to them, and he wanted them to know. It really didn’t matter what the truth was. The price might’ve gone up because of one of hundreds of market factors. But “Market factors” was double speak for greed—and he damned well knew it.
The world is complex. So complex that no individual, or group of individuals—no matter how smart—grasp all of its inner workings, which are the product of literally thousands of individual choices, maybe, even millions of individual choices. In response to this complexity, people tend to look for simple answers. “There is that group of evil people over there somewhere who are the culprits.” Not unlike my father’s seeking out a manager to solve the problem of milk.
The only thing these thousands or even millions of business people have in common, is “You” the consumer. Because without “You,” there is no “Them.” Meaning, no one who profits from selling milk. So, untold numbers of businesses work towards one goal, “Make the best milk, at the best price, available to everyone.”
The way you keep these businesses honest is “Competition.” If the quality of one these milk seller’s product declines, there will be another group who will fill the demand for tasty milk, and the inferior product will fade into oblivion. If this new milk provider fails to meet consumer demands, another one or more will are always be there to take their place. That is how “Free” markets work. Only when free markets are subverted does this change.
What does this mean? It means that if a desire to make a profit was bad, essentials like food and water should be ridiculously expensive. But, in America, even a homeless person can probably panhandle enough to eat for the day—in a single hour on the street corner, no less. In those parts of the world that believe that free markets are bad and must be carefully managed, resources like food, tend to be scarce as the result. In America, however, even the pauper will eat like a king, relatively speaking.
This will be the point which someone says “But no one should have to panhandle for food!”
There are any number of reasons why people find themselves in such predicaments, which may, or may not, be of their own making. Like my dad regarding the price of milk, though, the usual suspects are sure the solution is simple and greed is problem.
Why am I writing this? Because healthcare is no different. You either have a free market for health-care, which we haven’t had in America for more than 50 years, or you socialize the cost of health-care. It is precisely the intervention by government into the healthcare market, which has driven prices through the roof. Here is the evidence; the cost of a single aspirin in the emergency room can be more than twenty dollars. That’s because the emergency room represents socialized medicine, funded by taxpayer money and rife with an ever-growing list of government imposed mandates that can be very costly.
Now, go down the street to any Dollar Store. There are probably three or four within a few mile radius of your house. What do you find, aspirin-wise? A hundred aspirins for a measly buck vs. twenty bucks for a single aspirin at the government subsidized emergency room. One is a free market for aspirin. The other, represents subsidized, socialized, government controlled medicine.
This is the problem with Obamacare, which is nothing more than a response to the vast problem, created almost solely, by government intervention. Meaning, the ruinous nature of our health-care, will be ruined even further by more of the same.
What will save us?
“You.” And no one else. If Americans can’t distinguish why a bad idea is bad, they will suffer an endless barrage of bad ideas, masquerading as angels of light. To put it simply; the blind will be led, whether they are truly blind or not.
That is the problem with our health-care. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Mark Magula
The world is complex. So complex that no individual, or group of individuals—no matter how smart—grasp all of its inner workings, which are the product of literally thousands of individual choices, maybe, even millions of individual choices. In response to this complexity, people tend to look for simple answers. “There is that group of evil people over there somewhere who are the culprits.” Not unlike my father’s seeking out a manager to solve the problem of milk.
The only thing these thousands or even millions of business people have in common, is “You” the consumer. Because without “You,” there is no “Them.” Meaning, no one who profits from selling milk. So, untold numbers of businesses work towards one goal, “Make the best milk, at the best price, available to everyone.”
The way you keep these businesses honest is “Competition.” If the quality of one these milk seller’s product declines, there will be another group who will fill the demand for tasty milk, and the inferior product will fade into oblivion. If this new milk provider fails to meet consumer demands, another one or more will are always be there to take their place. That is how “Free” markets work. Only when free markets are subverted does this change.
What does this mean? It means that if a desire to make a profit was bad, essentials like food and water should be ridiculously expensive. But, in America, even a homeless person can probably panhandle enough to eat for the day—in a single hour on the street corner, no less. In those parts of the world that believe that free markets are bad and must be carefully managed, resources like food, tend to be scarce as the result. In America, however, even the pauper will eat like a king, relatively speaking.
This will be the point which someone says “But no one should have to panhandle for food!”
There are any number of reasons why people find themselves in such predicaments, which may, or may not, be of their own making. Like my dad regarding the price of milk, though, the usual suspects are sure the solution is simple and greed is problem.
Why am I writing this? Because healthcare is no different. You either have a free market for health-care, which we haven’t had in America for more than 50 years, or you socialize the cost of health-care. It is precisely the intervention by government into the healthcare market, which has driven prices through the roof. Here is the evidence; the cost of a single aspirin in the emergency room can be more than twenty dollars. That’s because the emergency room represents socialized medicine, funded by taxpayer money and rife with an ever-growing list of government imposed mandates that can be very costly.
Now, go down the street to any Dollar Store. There are probably three or four within a few mile radius of your house. What do you find, aspirin-wise? A hundred aspirins for a measly buck vs. twenty bucks for a single aspirin at the government subsidized emergency room. One is a free market for aspirin. The other, represents subsidized, socialized, government controlled medicine.
This is the problem with Obamacare, which is nothing more than a response to the vast problem, created almost solely, by government intervention. Meaning, the ruinous nature of our health-care, will be ruined even further by more of the same.
What will save us?
“You.” And no one else. If Americans can’t distinguish why a bad idea is bad, they will suffer an endless barrage of bad ideas, masquerading as angels of light. To put it simply; the blind will be led, whether they are truly blind or not.
That is the problem with our health-care. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Mark Magula