One more wrinkle: providers would be able to report monetary malingerers (those who seek out treatment to get the 5%) and would get a portion of their fraud as a reward. Likewise, patients would be able to report providers who stack on services to raise their cash input. Each of these would make it more difficult for fraud to be organized between patients and providers.
I've added a few wrinkles to this. Instead of eliminating the minimum wage, it could just be lowered (as subsidies raised) in times of high unemployment. This could be predicated on a standard schedule. It would have a similar effect as the above, but cause fewer ideological challenges.
Secondly, is a wrinkle I'd just forgotten about. In the case of non-business asset sales (think houses and cars), people could be reimbursed for the tax paid up to the amount that was paid when they purchased the asset. So if you buy a house for a million dollars, $250,000 would go to tax prior to reaching the buyer. When you sell that house for 1.1 million you would be able to file to only pay tax on the final $100,000 - or $25,000. Likewise, if you buy a car for $50,000 and then sell it for $25,000 you would get back the tax on the sale - in essence only paying for what you consumed.
Businesses would just have business expenses and so would have their initial purchases supplemented with no option for cash back on sales. Thus, this sort of filing would be the exception, not the rule.
These sorts of measures don't often result in the better communication of information. People are too worried about punishment for issues that aren't actually their fault. I work in civilian aerospace. When an accident occurs (in the West), they don't fire the pilots and staff involved. This is only done if there was malice involved. Instead, they interview everybody, figure out what went wrong, and adjust procedures appropriately. It works tremendously well. When they fire people, performance and procedures do not improve.
Fear of firing squads didn't make the USSR function and it won't work in China either.
How are police in NY responsible for a policeman's actions in Minneapolis? Although I completely agree the policeman was criminal/murderous in his actions (whether or not Floyd George asphyxiated), the protests/riots aren't about the specifics of *this* case. They are about a broader problem and that problem is a divide between communities and police. This divide shows itself in both police actions and community reactions.
Let's make communities responsible for their own beat cops - not some massive bureaucracy overseeing the policing of a half a million people. Let communities hire and fire their own patrols and determine how they want to manage them.
Why should somebody living in the Upper East Side be responsible for beat cops in the South Bronx? The South Bronx should be responsible for the South Bronx. The policing may or may not be *better*, but the accountability will be with the communities themselves.
The way we have things now is almost colonial. Poor neighborhoods are managed (badly) by professional bureaucrats in richer neighborhoods. This setup results in poor policing, terrible education etc... etc...
Just having a representative on some board is like Rhode Island being satisfied because they have a few seats in a Congress that manages every part of their lives. It isn't a recipe for responsibility or freedom.
The protests aren't about this case. If the protests were just about this case, the murder charge would have set things to rest. If the protests were just about this case, condemnation by national police associations would have set things to rest.
The protests/riots are about broader issues. That's why I didn't talk much about this particular case. This particular case was just a catalyst for the latest flareup in a situation that has been ongoing for longer than there has been a United States.
Just having a local police precinct is not the same as local control and accountability. Hiring and placement is city wide. So local individuals have much less say in who their police are than people in, say, Greenwich.
As far as trusting people to choose police, small towns all across the country do exactly this. You might want specialist services like labs to be available, but the beat cops would be locally chosen and managed.
You might recognize your cops but the chain of responsibility takes a long path before it connects you to them.
I spoke to corruption oversight. Im not sure large departments have any less corruption.
The argument that religion is the root of all wars is that you'd have to make Nazi Fascism and Communism religious. They are belief systems, but that is unavoidable. Both saw themselves as deeply scientific and nothing has cost more blood than those ideologies.
I did say it was rare for religious and communist governments to achieve the rule of law.
That said, it is precisely religious government that has enabled our modern conception of rights. Devout Christians were at the heart of the English Civil War which resulted in the first codification of a formal freedom of religion and freedom of speech. And it was Christians that fought the abomination of black slavery.
Religion can be quite positive - it just tends to be more effective outside the halls of power. Communism, at least the concept of ensuring people have what they need, can also be very positive - but not so much when it gets into politics.
@Jack S. Chen Because these things are typically named after locations where they first cropped up. Bill Mahr did a great little skit on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEfDwc2G2_8
His examples include: Zika, Ebola, Hanta, West Nile, MERS etc... etc...
The fact that Communist Chinese errors and coverups (arresting doctors...) almost certainly led to its failed containment (either in Wuhan or at the lab, depending on your theory) should not lead to a change in this naming approach. Being responsible and very aggressive should not lead to everybody saying "oh no, China won't like it!"
However, I personally do not think the Chinese Syndrome is a good name. There are a few reasons:
1) Chinese is an ethnicity, not just a location
2) Too many new viruses come from China for it to set any particular one apart
So, I go with Wuhan. It might not be a Respiratory Syndrome but because nobody else is using this naming and because WURS is a fun acronym, I'll stick with it.
DRM, I do not agree that the flu is more deadly. My presentation above was made quite a while ago, but it still predicted a *doubling* of mortality for different age groups if we did nothing. That is a lot of dead. It is *despite* this that it argued for more limited intervention. Arguing WURS (WUhan Respiratory Syndrome) is not dangerous is a losing hand. I only argued that doing what we were doing would cost more net life-years than a full lockdown. I still believe that is the case.
I still believe we should focus on protecting the elderly, defending nursing homes etc... That will save the most lives all around.
In the final note, I wrote specifically about assassinations - criticizing US actions in this area. I'm guessing you didn't read to the end.
The trade war is a different matter. There was a time everybody thought Russia would leave us in the dust, but they didn't. Then everybody thought Japan would leave us in the dust, but they didn't. Now it is China's turn.
People love centrally-directed systems, but they fail to see their limits. The reality is that centrally-directed systems have very real limits on their economic growth. They stifle the ground-level feedback mechanisms that direct continual, organic, economic growth in ways central planners never can. They also enable corruption that short-circuits what feedback mechanisms exist.
The confluence of wealth and power is also enough to make an American blush. In 2019, the top ten Chinese lawmakers had a combined net worth of $239 billion. The 10 richest members of the US Congress have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. Even if you add Trump in for fun, it is under $3.5 billion.
China has a concentration of wealth and a kleptocracy. It is not a genuinely wealthy country.
If you want to go by purchasing parity, China has per-capita PPP of $16,842. Taiwan, a free society, is at $55,000. The United States is $59,000.
China as a unitary body is powerful, but its people are poor. China has a long way to go before its people are well-off.
I believe they will never get there under their current system of government.
Latest Comments
The Road To A Post-Corona Boom (Healthcare) - Part 2
One more wrinkle: providers would be able to report monetary malingerers (those who seek out treatment to get the 5%) and would get a portion of their fraud as a reward. Likewise, patients would be able to report providers who stack on services to raise their cash input. Each of these would make it more difficult for fraud to be organized between patients and providers.
The Road To A Post-Corona Boom - Part 1
I've added a few wrinkles to this. Instead of eliminating the minimum wage, it could just be lowered (as subsidies raised) in times of high unemployment. This could be predicated on a standard schedule. It would have a similar effect as the above, but cause fewer ideological challenges.
Secondly, is a wrinkle I'd just forgotten about. In the case of non-business asset sales (think houses and cars), people could be reimbursed for the tax paid up to the amount that was paid when they purchased the asset. So if you buy a house for a million dollars, $250,000 would go to tax prior to reaching the buyer. When you sell that house for 1.1 million you would be able to file to only pay tax on the final $100,000 - or $25,000. Likewise, if you buy a car for $50,000 and then sell it for $25,000 you would get back the tax on the sale - in essence only paying for what you consumed.
Businesses would just have business expenses and so would have their initial purchases supplemented with no option for cash back on sales. Thus, this sort of filing would be the exception, not the rule.
The Road To A Post-Corona Boom (Foreign Policy) - Part 3
These sorts of measures don't often result in the better communication of information. People are too worried about punishment for issues that aren't actually their fault. I work in civilian aerospace. When an accident occurs (in the West), they don't fire the pilots and staff involved. This is only done if there was malice involved. Instead, they interview everybody, figure out what went wrong, and adjust procedures appropriately. It works tremendously well. When they fire people, performance and procedures do not improve.
Fear of firing squads didn't make the USSR function and it won't work in China either.
Brutality, Riots And A Way Forward
How are police in NY responsible for a policeman's actions in Minneapolis? Although I completely agree the policeman was criminal/murderous in his actions (whether or not Floyd George asphyxiated), the protests/riots aren't about the specifics of *this* case. They are about a broader problem and that problem is a divide between communities and police. This divide shows itself in both police actions and community reactions.
Let's make communities responsible for their own beat cops - not some massive bureaucracy overseeing the policing of a half a million people. Let communities hire and fire their own patrols and determine how they want to manage them.
Why should somebody living in the Upper East Side be responsible for beat cops in the South Bronx? The South Bronx should be responsible for the South Bronx. The policing may or may not be *better*, but the accountability will be with the communities themselves.
The way we have things now is almost colonial. Poor neighborhoods are managed (badly) by professional bureaucrats in richer neighborhoods. This setup results in poor policing, terrible education etc... etc...
Just having a representative on some board is like Rhode Island being satisfied because they have a few seats in a Congress that manages every part of their lives. It isn't a recipe for responsibility or freedom.
Brutality, Riots And A Way Forward
The protests aren't about this case. If the protests were just about this case, the murder charge would have set things to rest. If the protests were just about this case, condemnation by national police associations would have set things to rest.
The protests/riots are about broader issues. That's why I didn't talk much about this particular case. This particular case was just a catalyst for the latest flareup in a situation that has been ongoing for longer than there has been a United States.
Brutality, Riots And A Way Forward
Just having a local police precinct is not the same as local control and accountability. Hiring and placement is city wide. So local individuals have much less say in who their police are than people in, say, Greenwich.
As far as trusting people to choose police, small towns all across the country do exactly this. You might want specialist services like labs to be available, but the beat cops would be locally chosen and managed.
You might recognize your cops but the chain of responsibility takes a long path before it connects you to them.
I spoke to corruption oversight. Im not sure large departments have any less corruption.
The Road To A Post-Corona Boom (Foreign Policy) - Part 3
The argument that religion is the root of all wars is that you'd have to make Nazi Fascism and Communism religious. They are belief systems, but that is unavoidable. Both saw themselves as deeply scientific and nothing has cost more blood than those ideologies.
I did say it was rare for religious and communist governments to achieve the rule of law.
That said, it is precisely religious government that has enabled our modern conception of rights. Devout Christians were at the heart of the English Civil War which resulted in the first codification of a formal freedom of religion and freedom of speech. And it was Christians that fought the abomination of black slavery.
Religion can be quite positive - it just tends to be more effective outside the halls of power. Communism, at least the concept of ensuring people have what they need, can also be very positive - but not so much when it gets into politics.
Stop The Corona Insanity - The Data
@Jack S. Chen Because these things are typically named after locations where they first cropped up. Bill Mahr did a great little skit on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEfDwc2G2_8
His examples include: Zika, Ebola, Hanta, West Nile, MERS etc... etc...
The fact that Communist Chinese errors and coverups (arresting doctors...) almost certainly led to its failed containment (either in Wuhan or at the lab, depending on your theory) should not lead to a change in this naming approach. Being responsible and very aggressive should not lead to everybody saying "oh no, China won't like it!"
However, I personally do not think the Chinese Syndrome is a good name. There are a few reasons:
1) Chinese is an ethnicity, not just a location
2) Too many new viruses come from China for it to set any particular one apart
So, I go with Wuhan. It might not be a Respiratory Syndrome but because nobody else is using this naming and because WURS is a fun acronym, I'll stick with it.
Stop The Corona Insanity - The Data
DRM, I do not agree that the flu is more deadly. My presentation above was made quite a while ago, but it still predicted a *doubling* of mortality for different age groups if we did nothing. That is a lot of dead. It is *despite* this that it argued for more limited intervention. Arguing WURS (WUhan Respiratory Syndrome) is not dangerous is a losing hand. I only argued that doing what we were doing would cost more net life-years than a full lockdown. I still believe that is the case.
I still believe we should focus on protecting the elderly, defending nursing homes etc... That will save the most lives all around.
The Road To A Post-Corona Boom (Foreign Policy) - Part 3
In the final note, I wrote specifically about assassinations - criticizing US actions in this area. I'm guessing you didn't read to the end.
The trade war is a different matter. There was a time everybody thought Russia would leave us in the dust, but they didn't. Then everybody thought Japan would leave us in the dust, but they didn't. Now it is China's turn.
People love centrally-directed systems, but they fail to see their limits. The reality is that centrally-directed systems have very real limits on their economic growth. They stifle the ground-level feedback mechanisms that direct continual, organic, economic growth in ways central planners never can. They also enable corruption that short-circuits what feedback mechanisms exist.
The confluence of wealth and power is also enough to make an American blush. In 2019, the top ten Chinese lawmakers had a combined net worth of $239 billion. The 10 richest members of the US Congress have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. Even if you add Trump in for fun, it is under $3.5 billion.
China has a concentration of wealth and a kleptocracy. It is not a genuinely wealthy country.
If you want to go by purchasing parity, China has per-capita PPP of $16,842. Taiwan, a free society, is at $55,000. The United States is $59,000.
China as a unitary body is powerful, but its people are poor. China has a long way to go before its people are well-off.
I believe they will never get there under their current system of government.