I would say that the provision of borrowed money from the federal reserve will give a kick to the economy, just as the provision of a $100k credit card would up a normal person's spending temporarily until the money had to be paid back. At THAT time, another 100k credit card would be required to keep the spending up, although it would have to be a bit larger to enable paying back the first $100k credit balance.

Inflation of the prices eventually causes the unstainability of this approach, but in recent history the inclusion of the cheap chinese goods has cut back on the price increases that would normally be experienced.

Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged to show the dependency of human life on the mind, not to urge a strike as a solution to anything. She said that because the events in the novel and their parallels in reality were so depressing while she was writing it, she had to keep telling herself that she was working to prevent it -- by spreading the right ideas and showing what happens when the are not accepted. She never said that as some kind of last resort the need for the spread of the right ideas wouldn't be necessary and that somehow as "the only way left" a strike would work. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work, with or without the dire straights of a 'last resort', and she did not ever advocate that as a solution. There are no short cuts.

Voting for Trump was desperation by people who don't like what is happening but don't know what is right and/or had no where else to turn. He is the anti-intellectual 'man on the white horse' Ayn Rand warned about.

I think you are being a bit naive. I am not proposing conspiracy, but just that the various people involved in political power can have their own interests at heart and support something each for their own reasons and not the ones they say openly.

Conspiracy theories blaming it all on sinister forces are naive. The policy of encouraging home ownership through manipulation of the tax code was direct. It was not "just a gift to bankers" and "cities".

Artificial schemes of money manipulation do not work. In the stronger segments of the economy the production is a result of the degree of freedom still left to allow it. Arguing based on government masking of problems does not change the laws of economics. Reducing taxes does in fact help by allowing people more freedom. It is not true that "money printing" is required to grow the economy. If the government tries to continue the progressively increasing controls its manipulations will not help. But we do know that cuts in taxes and controls are necessary.

The solution is to spread the right ideas that create the direction of the country, as been discussed here many times. There are no short cuts. If there isn't enough time left after decades of neglect, then there isn't enough time and nothing else can be done. That doesn't make crack pot schemes suddenly workable.

I looked into the link you mentioned, but as I suspected there are only medicare advantage plans, which wouldnt be accepted by mayo at all, and medicare supplement plans, which would not be considered by mayo.

Clinics and hospitals set fees high to compensate for losses due to the requirement to serve for free those who won't pay. Everyone knows what is going on and the insurance companies in turn refuse to pay the inflated amounts, replacing them with 'negotiated' fees. The occasional individual who pays himself is shafted with artificial prices in a system where the prices are all phony and manipulated.

Pharmacy prices are lower in countries like Canada because of government price controls there, as well as the black markets with counterfeit and stolen drugs. The pharmacy companies survive it the best they can, but it adds to their costs, making it impossible to sell for lower prices in this country.

All that is sadly true. I think it comes down to if you have one politician saying there's scarcity in the world but also opportunities to create things, so consumers have to make intelligent purchases, and you have a second politician saying I have a trick to get you something without paying for it, the second one wins by a small margin. So most all politicians offer a gov't trick to supposedly get people stuff without paying for it. I do not think politicians have a goal of complete gov't control. They want to get elected. "Free stuff" works, so they use it. People don't want a handout, but they'll accept it if "reforming the system" supposedly gets them free stuff.

I can get "supplement insurance", and I have that. However, mayo can only get the medicare approved reimbursement plus 15%, which is what they get from treating me.

Mayo is refusing new patients (which means patients who have not seen that particular specialty within the last three years) with Medicare whether or not they have supplemental (gap) policies.

They are experimenting with what is called concierge family doctor plans, which cost $6000 upfront per year, and most likely allow you to get seen by a specialty when referred by their concierge doctor. Its a back door approach which works for a while longer until the government figures a way to stop it to force medicare level of care for everyone. Its very disturbing.

Once 65, there are no private insurance plans that I can get other than medicare. I will look at the link you mentioned, but I really doubt there are other than the supplemental plans that pay the 20% medicare doesnt pay, plus the 15% the medical providers can charge over that.

You pay for what you get under justice, not any variety of statism, including the fad notions of "fair" taxes vaguely called "equal".

As I understand it, she wrote AS to show the end game of statism in HOPES that people would wake up and NOT embrace statism.

But, she did understand that IF people continue to embrace statism, the only way left to combat it is what the heroes and heroines of the story did- namely withdraw assistance to the society.

Obviously the writing of AS failed the initial purpose, which she even acknowledged. Statism is more prevalent now than since the book was written- all over the world. There is some reaction to the pursuit of liberal ideas that was obvious in the last election with the rise of popularity of Trump, but I suspect that is short lived and 2018 will bring in democratically run congress. Trump will be able to stand in the way of grossly statist ideas, but even he is no Galt by any means.

Note even his approach to Obamacare- REPEAL and REPLACE was his mantra, not just REPEAL which is what should have been done. REPLACE means another government program which promise even more freebies for the unwashed as the expense of productive people.

The pressure group warfare is created by the mixed system of freedom and controls. Every aspect of the increasing statism can only be stopped by spreading the right ideas with the right basic premises, not by 'striking' to cause an even worse collapse.

Blue Cross sells insurance nationally https://www.bcbs.com/learn/medicare/m.... There are many private insurers who sell insurance that supplements Medicare, some nationally and some regionally. Mayo Clinic stopped taking new patients with only Medicare for some doctors' specialty practices https://www.mayoclinic.org/patient-vi..., which is consistent with the national trend.

I think you are a bit naive as to how these political things go. Implicit alignment of interests means that the mortgage deduction was proposed for reason "x" by some politician, and then endorsed by other politicians for reasons "y", "z"...... until it passes. its all based on the "individual self interests" of the special interest groups. What the governmental bodies pass has little to do with some sort of common good or protection of property rights- its just an aligning of special interests.

Look at Obamacare. It was an aligning of the interests of insurance companie to be able to raise rates with the govt kicking in a percentage, hospitals wanting more paying customers, and freeloaders wanting free medical care that got it passed. The average consumer and taxpayer was completely left out of this and suffers as a result. There will be no repeal of Obamacare, as we have seen, and only the resumption of the plan for medicare (paid for by the government of course) for everyone.

I will argue that the money printing that has gone on has artificially masked the reduction in the economy of the last few years. The piper needs to be paid, and if money printing stops, there will be a slowdown in the economy to return it to a sustainable level. So I am saying that continuation of money printing is required to keep the economy moving. It like if I gave you a $100k credit card, you might go out and increase your lifestyle until the card was maxed out and you had to dramatically reduce your lifestyle to pay it back, UNLESS I gave you another 100k credit card...

All true means that it is true, not that that its opposite is true. Ayn Rand did not write Atlas Shrugged to promote a strike or a revolution nor would it solve the problem for the reasons she gave many times. It would only deliberately accelerate a collapse into misery if it had any effect at all. Crackpot utopian schemes do not work.

The mortgage deduction has nothing to do with Iraq. Vague statements of "implicit alignment of interests" does not support the 'banking conspiracy' theory. Tax deductions for mortgages by individuals who wanted to buy a home were not "just a gift for bankers to charge more" or a "gift to cities" so they could raise taxes on homes that became worth more. Home prices have nothing to do with the total property taxes collected, which are imposed to cover total spending, then allocated in accordance with relative property values. Every tax policy distorts the economy in some way; those were not what the deduction was for. Attributing tax deductions to "just gifts" for sinister "implicit alignment of interests" doesn't make any sense.

That the growth of government is a problem does not make inflation necessary for production.

Actually I think most medical establishments bill what they want. If you have no insurance, that’s what u pay. If The hospital or doctor accepts Medicare, they have to accept medicare’s Specified amount. They can add 15% more that the patient or their gap insurer will pay, but can’t charge more than that to the patient. They can agree NOT to accept Medicare, but then the patient cannot. Even get any reimbursement at all from Medicare. This was mayo’s issue. They are set on delivering excellent care but can’t afford to do that on Medicare reimbursements and can’t ask for more from the patient. For us retired dinosaurs, there is only Medicare. Once it’s medicare for everyone, health care is going to decline drastically.

When I saw the incident at Berkeley with mili yiannopoulos (sp), whom I had not heard of before, I was determined that if the liberals hated him so much I should definitelytcheck him out. So I bought his book and found he had a lot of good ideas. I like his political iincorrrctness, his admiration for ayn rand and Donald Trump, and his ability and willingness to expose Islam for what it is. I recommend his book. DANGEROUS.

If you have a real solution that hasn't failed repeatedly, then state it. I look forward to hearing more than criticism without understanding (as I am sure you would.) You appear to feel that a peaceful political solution is likely. If so, how is it more likely to succeed than a strike?

Let's see if the Republicans take it out on Susan Collins with the FFG(X) program. The Navy is not happy with GD and Phoebe. BIW might be in jeopardy. LLBean can't float that whole state that is sliding into a VT-style funk.

They are still a bastion, but only the "right" speech. All others will be punished.

I think it is a very complicated, and corrupt system in place, as even with company health care (my employer is self insured), i see billing at random numbers, where an office visit is 400, then they take 200 as the "contacted amount". If it is contracted, why don't they bill the contracted rate? It is a classic "get what the traffic will bear" and with Medicare, they can't do that, so they dump it. Same with pharmacy, if Canada and India are to be used as references, look at the HUGE difference in drug costs. Someone posted a thing here a while ago where a group of doctors banded together and cut their costs in half, buy dumping a lot of the insurance and a basic fee schedule.