2/3 say ditch individual health care mandate

[Listening]

Harvard? That place that turned out a president who can't understand the Constitution? Gee, I'm impressed.

you must be one of those people who thinks going to college is only for snobs.....

When you get through high school, maybe you can tell us about your experiences with college compared toyours.

His experience will be having his underwear getting pulled over his head by the football team.

He'll be a natural target.

I hope he rushes......

I'd pay to see him at the top of a flagpole hanging by his belt.

 

[Syphon]

It is unfortunate that you didn't make it through High School....on your own.

its unfortunate you didnt make it out of 5th grade.....

Wow...

Must be tough to admit that someone who didn't make it through the fifth grade mopped up the place with you when discussing the USC and Federalist Papers.

Still waiting for those sections from Federalist 10, Mr. Success.

Or might it be that they don't exist.

ha! so you admit it! you actually didnt make it though the 5th grade......

 

[Syphon]

Harvard? That place that turned out a president who can't understand the Constitution? Gee, I'm impressed.

you must be one of those people who thinks going to college is only for snobs.....

When you get through high school, maybe you can tell us about your experiences with college compared to ours.

you dont have to lie, you didnt go to college. its ok........ i need someone to pump my gas anyways....

 

[Wry Catcher]

Yawn.

 

[saveliberty]

you must be one of those people who thinks going to college is only for snobs.....

When you get through high school, maybe you can tell us about your experiences with college compared to ours.

you dont have to lie, you didnt go to college. its ok........ i need someone to pump my gas anyways....

Too stupid for self serve I see.

 

[Listening]

When you get through high school, maybe you can tell us about your experiences with college compared to ours.

you dont have to lie, you didnt go to college. its ok........ i need someone to pump my gas anyways....

Too stupid for self serve I see.

 

[saveliberty]

My last post struck a nerve huh Syphon?

 

[saveliberty]

Electrical control buildings sounds a lot more impressive than generator sales. lol

 

[RDD_1210]

Electrical control buildings sounds a lot more impressive than generator sales. lol

You sell used cars, please get down off that high horse.

 

[Polk]

That actually proves the opposite.

1 out of every 50 dollars spend on health care are uninsured people sticking the public with the bill. That's a pretty sizable amount.

So that's 49 dollars that are not stuck.
The claim was "people don't pay their bills." This disproves it.

I see no rebuttal to my showing that Obamacare's penalty as a tax is a fail. And as a penalty it is also a fail.

You're making an incorrect assumption: that a tax needs to have a large impact to be constitutional.

 

[Polk]

I don't care about political rhetoric. I care about legal realities.

OK.
The Federal Government lacks the Constitutional authority to lay such a tax. Article I Section 9

No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

The only exception is the income tax, which this is not.
QED. The individual mandate is unconstitutional. Since there was no severability clause in the law the rest of the law will be found unconstitutional as well.
Obamacare is dead.

Polk has left the building.

I'm not here every moment of the day.

To address your statement, there wouldn't need to be an exception, since a poll/head tax is exactly what the Constitution allows.

 

[Polk]

Either or. I do think markets self regulate, when we let them, but 'nothing' in the sense of "haven't thought that far ahead" is better than leaving the impending mandate in place. The notion that we must 'replace' it with something assumes the mandate is better than nothing. It think it is worse than nothing.

how did self regulation of derivatives on wall street work out?
how did self regulation of the mortgage industry work out?

I don't know that it's ever been tried. For as long as I can remember there's been lots of regulation around those things. It's shitty regulation, granted, designed to insulate the purveyors of crap rather than consumers. But then that's how most overreaching regulator schemes pan out.

Also, before you go there - self regulating markets don't require anarchy, and basic laws regarding transparency and accountability are essential to any market. Hopeful you get that, but I have my doubts.

A significant decline in the amount of regulation was followed up by widespread malfeasance. It seems pretty bizarre to claim that dropped regulations to zero would instantly cause people to become self-policing. This whole "markets will sort themselves out" thing assumes people have perfect information and that fraud isn't a problem.

 

[Polk]

I don't know that it's ever been tried. For as long as I can remember there's been lots of regulation around those things. It's shitty regulation, granted, designed to insulate the purveyors of crap rather than consumers. But then that's how most overreaching regulator schemes pan out.

Also, before you go there - self regulating markets don't require anarchy, and basic laws regarding transparency and accountability are essential to any market. Hopeful you get that, but I have my doubts.

Has there ever existed a "self regulating market"?

I suppose a cartel might qualify and become the norm without government interference.

wrong.

Most industries in a "pure competition" free market are oligopolies.

And one of the virtues of an oligopoly is they tend to be self regulating.

Are you kidding? Most industries, in the absence of regulation, are monopolies.

 

[dblack]

Are you kidding? Most industries, in the absence of regulation, are monopolies.

In the absence of laws, maybe. But then there's always the equivocation on the term in these discussions. In reality, unless a business resorts to violence (in which case they're simply criminals and all bets are off) it's pretty tough to maintain a persistent monopoly. Monopolies are almost always built on top of a pervasive 'regulatory' environment where the state performs the thuggery for them.

 

[dblack]

A significant decline in the amount of regulation was followed up by widespread malfeasance. It seems pretty bizarre to claim that dropped regulations to zero would instantly cause people to become self-policing. This whole "markets will sort themselves out" thing assumes people have perfect information and that fraud isn't a problem.

Yeah.. well, again the equivocation on the terms "laws" and "regulations" makes these discussions problematic. The difference, in my view, is that laws are rules enforced to prevent theft, fraud, etc and make a free market possible. Regulations, on the other hand, are measures intended to give government the power to manipulate market activities, proscribing or 'incentivizing' this or that activity. Fans of "regulation" tend to have the annoying habit of accusing anyone opposed to that kind of interference of calling for lawlessness - which is nothing more than a strawman.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Acts of Congress are laws; Regulations are issued by Federal agencies to implement the authority of law. Regulations can be changed at whim; statutory law can't be changed without an Act of Congress.

 

[Polk]

Are you kidding? Most industries, in the absence of regulation, are monopolies.

In the absence of laws, maybe. But then there's always the equivocation on the term in these discussions. In reality, unless a business resorts to violence (in which case they're simply criminals and all bets are off) it's pretty tough to maintain a persistent monopoly. Monopolies are almost always built on top of a pervasive 'regulatory' environment where the state performs the thuggery for them.

That's not even remotely necessary. Unless an industry has very low barriers to entry, dominant firms can just undercut all possible competitors until they drive them out of business.

 

[dblack]

Acts of Congress are laws; Regulations are issued by Federal agencies to implement the authority of law. Regulations can be changed at whim; statutory law can't be changed without an Act of Congress.

That's certainly a more factual description. I was trying to capture the sort of policies that people refer to when they're calling for more, or less, "regulation". But your clarification highlights a really important, and I think dangerous, feature of regulations. They're essentially rule by decree of authority and as such very tempting targets for aggressive lobbying.

 

[Polk]

Acts of Congress are laws; Regulations are issued by Federal agencies to implement the authority of law. Regulations can be changed at whim; statutory law can't be changed without an Act of Congress.

While that's a popular public perception of regulation, it's not really true. The process of creating and/or amending a regulation is subject to a lot of controls.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Are you kidding? Most industries, in the absence of regulation, are monopolies.

In the absence of laws, maybe. But then there's always the equivocation on the term in these discussions. In reality, unless a business resorts to violence (in which case they're simply criminals and all bets are off) it's pretty tough to maintain a persistent monopoly. Monopolies are almost always built on top of a pervasive 'regulatory' environment where the state performs the thuggery for them.

That's not even remotely necessary. Unless an industry has very low barriers to entry, dominant firms can just undercut all possible competitors until they drive them out of business.

A perfect example is Wall-Mart; moving into a small town creates ghost town main streets.