ACA/Obamacare: The 3 1/2 Page Replacement [S.222] for the 2,700 Page Obamacare Legislation. No way! Way!

“U.S. Senator and physician Rand Paul introduced S. 222, the Obamacare Replacement Act, to provide Congress with a health care plan grounded in broadly supported conservative reforms that is ready for an immediate vote after Obamacare is repealed. Dr. Rand Paul’s proposal would expand access to higher-quality, lower-cost health care for more Americans, regardless of medical history.

The Obamacare Replacement Act empowers the American people to: 1.) Choose inexpensive insurance free of government dictates; 2.) Save unlimited amounts in a health savings account (HSA) and have wider options for using those funds; 3.) Buy insurance across state lines; and 4.) Join together in voluntary associations to gain the leverage of being part of a large insurance pool." - Rand Paul Introduces His Own Obamacare Replacement Plan – Read All 4 Pages Here! cscmediagroupus.com, 03/08/2017

Link to the entire article appears below:

http://www.cscmediagroupus.com/robert-zerfing/rand-paul-obamacare-replacement


Note: You can download all three and one-half pages of S.222 near the end of the article.

Independent Women's Forum: Meet Beth

Oklahoma Doctors vs. Obamacare

How Nations Succeed: What's the Secret to Ending Poverty?

HT: Kids Prefer Cheese

Larry Kudlow Interviews Paul Ryan

Is Capitalism [Free Markets] "Pro Business"?

Talk is cheap and it drives out talk that is less cheap - Frank Knight

“Frank Knight, a professor at Chicago University from 1922-1972, was considered one of the founders of the Chicago School of economics. This was not a "school" with a building and a staff. It was, rather, a "school of thought" that generally viewed capitalism as the best of all possible systems in dealing with the human condition as applied to the distribution of goods and services within a society. Frank Knight considered this regrettable, but true. In an age when socialism was all the rage, he understood that socialism was inefficient and incapable of supporting growth, expansion and scientific advancement.” (1)

Dr. Knight's First Law of Talk: "Talk is cheap and it drives out talk that is less cheap."

Frank Knight was an economics professor of both Milton Friedman and James M. Buchanan. Both Friedman and Buchanan are Nobel Prize winners in economics.

“Frank Knight humorously hypothesized that this idea about bad and good money could be applied to communication. "Cheap talk" was easily manufactured and it tends to drive out more reasoned talk because the response to cheap talk is more generally even cheaper talk that is yet more inflated. This law can easily be seen in action in the realm of politics and diplomacy. It also applies to academic arguments that generate a certain amount of vitriol.” (2)

Notes:

(1) Frank Knight's First Law of Talk

http://www.indepthinfo.com/articles/law-of-talk.shtml

(2) Ibid

Globular Objects

The Light Bulb Cops

The budgetary gridlock in Washington in the final legislative days before Christmas took on a farcical atmosphere when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to move a government-funding bill because, among several other features he objects to, it would overturn a de facto federal ban on incandescent light bulbs.

But late last night Mr. Reid and House Speaker John Boehner agreed to terms on the spending bill, and Republicans won on the light bulb issue. The ban is suspended for one year. The GOP also prevailed on its prohibition of funding for abortions in the District of Columbia, though most of their deregulatory policy directives were stripped from the legislation.

The fact that the light bulb ban even made the list of Mr. Reid's grievances indicates how captive Democrats are to the anti-carbon police. Fluorescent light bulbs are more energy efficient, and though they cost more they last longer than traditional incandescent bulbs. But many consumers just haven't taken to the curly cue bulbs and prefer the older, cheaper kind. So Congress decided to take away the choice for consumers by requiring that all bulbs meet energy efficiency standards. This has meant that stores like Wal-Mart and Home Depot have been clearing the shelves of the traditional bulbs.

The new "green" bulbs can cost as much as $40, which in these tough times is a financial pinch. It's also the height of global warming hysteria to think that letting a family screw a traditional light bulb into the bedroom lamp is going to melt the Arctic ice caps. For another year, at least, American consumers can still by the light bulbs they want. It was a rare victory for liberty on Capitol Hill.

-- Stephen Moore, The Wall Street Journal,  Political Diary, 12/16/2011

Curb excessive drinking? Sell beer!

"West Virginia University says it has found a profitable way to curb excessive drinking at home football games: sell beer at concession stands.

By tapping kegs at Mountaineer Field, West Virginia has added $700,000 to the athletic department and reduced the number of incidents in which police were called because of excessive drinking by around 30 percent, Athletic Director Oliver Luck said in an interview".

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-09/football-beer-taps-add-safety-700-000-to-west-virginia-university-sports.html


"Consider this—in 1989, Playboy magazine purposefully excluded WVU from the top ten list, noting that the magazine does not rank professional partiers".


http://www.onlineuniversities.com/rankings/10-biggest-party-schools/


Update 01/11/2012

“The same ethic applies to road games: In September, LSU and its fans traveled to West Virginia, which has one of the few college stadiums that serves alcohol.

According to a school spokesman, Mountaineer Field sold over $120,000 in beer alone that night—even though parts of the stadium sold out of cold Bud Light around halftime. Not only was that figure 33% higher than the figure for the next-highest game, it accounted for 23% of the season's total beer sales over seven games.

"The whole line was LSU fans buying four beers at a time," reports Judson Sanders, a 31-year-old Tigers fan who works in electrical contracting. “ - You Can't Spell 'Lush' Without L-S-U, The Wall Street Journal, 01/05/2012

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203471004577141180847382556.html

“Buy American” -or- “Buy Union Assembled”?

John Stossel recently wrote an essay entitled The Stupidity of "Buy American". Link to the essay appears below:

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2011/11/02/the_stupidity_of_buy_american/page/2

Stossel is correct in that the rational consumer buys the best value regardless of the nation of origin. Many times the rational consumer buys American as it represents the best value. However, “buy American” is basically presented as a particular duty of the rational consumer to act irrational by limiting choice. That the irrational behavior will somehow, someway create American jobs. As pointed out by Stossel, if rational behavior yields basket of goods Y at price P, irrational behavior yields basket of goods Y at P+1 or basket of goods Y-1 at price P. In both situations, P+1 or Y-1 represents a value forgone by the irrational path. Where does this forgone value go?

One must think about who hypes “buy American”. Answer: unions and industry trade groups that benefit. The union wants artificially high wages and the trade group is having trouble competing. The forgone value of the irrational consumer is then transferred as artificially high union wages and supporting the uncompetitive trade group.

Taking this one step further, unions and trade groups are acting rational by advertising for the consumer to be irrational. Ah, the evil of it all!

Let us say one decides to “buy American”. Is the item 100% American? Are the machines, technology, capital, etc. that produce the product 100% American? In the main the answer is no.

Therefore, one may be able to translate “buy American” as merely “buy union assembled“.

Foreign Trade Subsidies: foreign and home economic rent seeker, foreign and home politico, and the foreign and home taxpayer/consumer

Foreign trade subsidies are vilified by politicos and their associated economic rent seekers [special interests] and result in protectionist measures such as the recent U.S. Senate China currency bill. Arguments over free trade vs. protectionism are many and varied. Without getting into the tall weeds of the free trade vs. protectionism debate, one might want to examine one very narrow topic which is the gain position of particular consumers/taxpayers due to foreign subsidies.

Contemplate the following:

(1) consider groups which are made up of the foreign and home economic rent seekers, foreign and home politicos, and the foreign and home taxpayers/consumers,

(2) foreign subsidies mean the foreign taxpayer/consumer is bearing a cost of a foreign economic rent seeker, a foreign politico, or a combination of a foreign economic renter seeker and foreign politico,

(3) the home taxpayer/consumer [diffused unrepresented group] , which is constantly under attack by the well organized home economic rent seekers and the home rent seeker’s relationship with the home politico, is in a unique position,

(4) the first component of the unique position is that the home tax payer is not being called upon to fund a home renter seeker/politico scheme,

(4a) the next component of the unique position also allows the home taxpayer/consumer to enjoy a gain in the form of the foreign subsidy in that foreign goods are artificially reduced in price equivalent to the foreign taxpayer/consumer bearing a cost of a foreign economic rent seeker, a foreign politico, or a combination of a foreign economic renter seeker and foreign politico.

Therefore, home consumer C buys product Y. Product Y is purchased at price P minus the foreign taxpayer/consumer subsidy. The home consumer is receiving price relief via a foreign taxpayer. The foreign taxpayer is coerced into subsidizing home consumer C’s purchases of product Y by a foreign economic rent seeker, a foreign politico, or a combination of a foreign economic renter seeker and foreign politico.

This unique gain position of the home taxpayer/consumer spawns a unique argument. The unique argument is one in which home politicos and home interested rent seeker frame the home taxpayer/consumer in a non-gain position. Stated alternatively, the home rent seeker and home politico purposely create a false argument that the home taxpayer/consumer is in a loss position. The unique gain position of the home consumer C buying product Y at price P minus the foreign taxpayer/consumer subsidy is framed as a loss not a gain. That is, rational consumer C should irrationally reject lower prices produced by foreign taxpayers/consumers.

Why in the world should rational consumer C irrationally reject lower prices produced by foreign taxpayers/consumers? The home taxpayer/consumer is urged to erase his gain and act irrationally as an exogenous party wants to capture the gain. Politicos and their associated rent seekers want consumer C to transfer the gain, through differing methods, to home rent seekers and their associated home politico.

That is, the taxpayer/consumer gain, in fact, becomes yet another target of the rent seeker and politico. The gain is merely viewed as an additional revenue source for the rent seeker/politico. That by fashioning a false argument the gain can be extracted from the taxpayer/consumer.

An excellent essay one might want to examine is Do Subsidies Justify Retaliatory Protectionism, Donald Boudreaux, department of economics, George Mason University, Link appears below:

http://cafehayek.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/I-attach.pdf

University of Free Marketeers.....in Guatemala??

The Socialized Medicine Scheme: the false choice of central planning

An underlying argument within the health-care debate is that the free market is being compared to a government plan that is somehow likely to perform as the alternative to a free market.(1)

Basically, the free market is a series of individuals, making individual decisions, decisions in their own self interest. That when the zillions of economic decisions are combined, the combination of decisions sets the allocation of scarce resources to competing ends.


The free market intuitively appears chaotic. It appears unorganized. The appearance of a chaotic, unorganized free market however yields the most efficient allocation of resources to competing ends as well as having the attribute of individuals solving for the least expensive, simplest solutions to their perceived problems/needs/wants.

Thomas Sowell has explained the appearance of chaotic and unorganized characteristics of the free market to the ecosystem of a forest. The ecosystem of the forest was not planned. The ecosystem of the forest came about due to a zillion chaotic and unorganized activities that produced an efficient ecosystem. (2)

However, advocates of central planning (government planning as an alternative to a free market) make the assumption that a central authority can better plan and hence create a better outcome than the results of a free market. The problem is:

(a) central planning then supplants the individual. It supplants individual decisions, decisions made in the realm of individual self interest, and precludes decision made by individuals attempting to find the least expensive and simplest solutions to their perceived needs/wants/problems,

(b) central planning then must set prices for scarce resources to competing ends. Regardless of the organization of your economy, resources are scarce and participants in the economy are competing for the use of those scarce resources. We know that no one individual can set a price for more than a few prices that they might be familiar with due to mundane knowledge of a particular product/industry. Then how can a central planned economy (government planning as an alternative to a free market) set the prices for hundreds of thousands of prices? Who is smart enough to set those prices? The very best example is the former Soviet Union where central planners had to set thousands and thousands of prices each and every year that merely caused resource distortion with major surpluses in some areas and severe shortages in other areas, (3)

(b2) going back to Sowell’s forest ecosystem, exactly when should the acorn fall from the tree, where should it land, and should it root and grow or should it rot? Now try planning every leaf, twig, blade of grass and growth/death within the forest ecosystem.

Its counter intuitive to think the seemingly chaotic and unorganized free market creates efficient outcomes. Its intuitive to think somehow intervention by adding planning will result in better outcomes. However, no one individual or group of individuals can plan a gazillion economic interactions or a hundred thousand prices. The ecosystem of the forest appears chaotic and unorganized yet results in an efficient outcome. Planning the ecosystem of a forest is impossible and if attempted produces an inefficient result. Planning economic activity is impossible and produces a highly inefficient result.

Hence the underlying argument within the health-care debate that the free market is being compared to a government plan that is somehow likely to perform as the alternative to a free market is a false choice/argument.

(1)http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/03/don_boudreaux_o_3.html

(2) (3) Intellectuals and Society, Thomas Sowell, Chapter 3