UK more free than US
The UK makes its way into the top 5 on The Heritage Foundation’s index of economic freedom. It is a sign of just how overregulated the US has become that it is now being outpaced on the economic freedom front by a country that forces people to pay for socialized medicine, charges tax/duty rates in excess of 250% on essential goods, and runs a government-owned and coercively financed media operation.
7 Comments:
It is very difficult for me to return to the U.S. after living abroad.
Scott, what is so bad about "socialized medicine" as you call it ? What makes you unhappy that your fellow men have some sort of medical coverage ? Wouldn't you do better questioning why the US needs to spend more on defence (misnomer) than the next 10 military powers behind it ?
Anon -
Q: What is so bad about socialized medicine?
A: The same thing that is wrong with any kind of socialist economy. It allows/requires a central organizer to make value decisions people instead of allowing them to make their own value decisions.
Q: What makes you unhappy that your fellow men have some sort of medical coverage ?
A: Nothing. I am perfectly happy to see my fellow men have some sort of medical coverage. But my happiness at a given state of the world does not justify me forcing someone else to pay for it.
Q: Wouldn't you do better questioning why the US needs to spend more on defence (misnomer) than the next 10 military powers behind it ?
A: Nope. I already know why it needs to do so.
SC
Free medical care is one of your human rights, so don’t knock it.
Anon -
If you think that free medical care is a "human right", I am afraid you haven't the slightest idea what a right is.
(Which, by the way, is one of the greatest political problems of our age...the gratuitous abuse of the term "right" to the point that it means little more than "something I want".)
SC
Scott,
For most civilized people I know, life and death, like justice, is not a "value decision" (typical investment-banker-speak). Whilst all social services can harbour waste, the same can be said for the insurance and pharma companies who take most of the money that go into private systems.
Typical for a Repub on the defensive, you will seek to justify ANY amount of money spent on your military (no waste or inefficiency there, noooo), so why not double that figure to 1 trillion ? I know, you'll get there soon, and you'll still be just as hopeless occupying foreign lands with Mexicans seeking US citizenship.
Anon,
For most people I know, civilized or not, most health care decisions are not life and death decisions. And, whether you like it or not, the provision of health care (or frankly, any benefit that is provided to us by the work of others) is an economic issue. The question of relative value quite simply cannot be seperated from the provision of the service, regardless of what system provides it. The only question is who is making the value decisions...individuals for themselves, or a central command for everyone.
On defense, I don't think I have sought to justify anything. And I openly acknowledge that there is waste and inefficiency in defense spending. It is, afterall, a government operation, so how could it be otherwise?
SC
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