If corporations “especially” have rights, then you’re talking a marriage of government and business. That’s the antithesis to a free market. And that’s what we see a lot of in America. It’s called corporate cronyism. It’s where a large corporation has a competitive edge that goes beyond its ability to compete for customers due to government regulations that create barriers to entry and conduct in the marketplace.

And that’s ONLY possible if government regulates business. If government has no such authority, corporations can’t buy such influence. So, when you call for regulations to control these evil corporations, know that they’ll have their lobbyists there making sure those regulations are crafted so that it will ensure that competitors have a harder time entering the marketplace. In turn, you see the phenomenon of these powerful corporations destroying smaller businesses who don’t have the lobbyists and lawyers needed to navigate this complicated regulatory maze.

So, your regulations will create more of the very thing the regulations are suppose to prevent. So, you and others like you will call for more regulations, and more of the same will follow.

Nice job. It’s like the drug war. We outlaw drugs and that creates violence and crime. So, we pour more money into the drug war, which just creates more of the same, justifying an even bigger drug war. So, government grows and grows and grows and grows.

*shrugs*

94.8% “The United States’ labor regulations are highly flexible. The non-salary cost of employing a worker is low, and dismissing an employee is not burdensome.” http://www.heritage.org/index/Country/UnitedStates#labor-freedom

Only Singapore and Australia are higher, according to their system, in 2010.

Of course, the inability to change jobs or get divorced or leave your parents’ home, for fear of losing your health insurance coverage, and an unemployment rate hovering around 10% do not say much about the freedom of laborers to make their own choices. But, yeah, employers got lots of rights in the US, especially big corporations.

The Heritage Foundation is the group, along with the WSJ, that does that index. I’m going to build you a clue out of sculpty prims. It will be every bit as real and poignant and your grip on economics.

First, Luxembourg has the 14th freest economy out of 179, according to the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. So, not surprising, it’s one of the richest countries in the world. So, it has a relatively free market when you look at all indicators, which include ten different factors.

Since the Index of Economic Freedom is the premiere source for this ranking, I use it. Asking me to work in another simply because you don’t like its conclusions is silly. Unless you can explain a flaw in their data or methodology, then there’s no reason to select another, even if a comparable source existed. Do you know of one that has different conclusions? I’d happily examine it.

And yes, it has a lot of old money. Essentially, there are few entrepreneurs in Luxembourg. They don’t have an equivalent of Bill Gates there. They’re not innovating new products at all. Instead, they’re just reinvesting old money from medieval royal families. Investment capital is the backbone of its economy. Since they are a relatively free market, the money doesn’t get squandered away on bureaucratic waste. It’s very easy to invest what wealth it possesses. So, this helps keeps the country wealthy. If its economy was less free, like that you see in African countries, its wealth and standard of living would decline.

The United States has a very large investment industry also, but this capital was built on innovation and industry. There’s no royalty in America, and compared to Luxembourg, the US is very young. So, it doesn’t have much old money.

Luxembourg has a socialized healthcare system far more “socialist” than anything Obama has suggested, and yet it is THE country held out at the “awesome” end of the spectrum by that BBC video you linked to.

Please explain this apparent dichotomy to your free market system, and please, if you’re going to again simply say “They have old money” I would like that explained in detail as well. There is old money all over the world, including the United States, but it doesn’t seem to do jack for anyone except the people that are sitting on it or lawyering for it

Please also work in another link to the Heritage Foundation if possible.

kthx.

Lasik surgery is one of the few fields of medicine that has not only see rapid innovation in the past 20 years. It’s gotten *cheaper*. Why? Because no public programs or insurance cover it. So, doctors have to pander to the needs of their customers in order to get customers, and they have to compete with each other.

Fact is, medical costs have skyrocketed because people have this third-party payer system. Doctors don’t compete with each other by pandering to the needs of their customers, which would include providing better, more innovative healthcare at lower prices than other doctors. So, doctors and all those in the medical industry have no incentive to provide cheaper, better healthcare.

Of course, you’ll accuse me of wanting poor people to get sick and die, and I’ll just save you the trouble of that strawman and say, no, I don’t. In fact, I want healthcare to be as accessible as fast food. Quick, convenient, cheap, and satisfying with an endless supply of choices to fit everyone’s needs. If we could do it for food, which people die without, why can’t we do it for medicine?

And this is the problem with socialized health care. It justifies intrusions into people’s personal choices. What if we all paid for the consequences of our own choices and enjoyed the freedom to do whatever we want with our bodies?

You have to take your rationale to its logical conclusion, since a government with the power to make decisions as to one’s health choices can essentially rationalize just about any control over people’s choices. What they eat, whom they have s3x with, how much they exercise, what recreation is acceptable, and many other very intimate choices become a matter of public concern and no one has sovereignty over any personal choice.

How would you like to have the government determine what s3xual practice you can engage in with another consenting adult? Well, if we’re all going to have to pay if you make bad choices, then why can’t we arrest adults who don’t practice safe s3x? Wear a c0ndom or go to jail?

Perhaps you’re not advocating criminal enforcement. Okay, what then? Public education campaigns? So you’re not willing to pay for someone’s bad health choices, but you’ll pay for expensive campaigns to tell them what they already know and hope that you’ll get them to do what you want?

There’s no one on this planet that doesn’t know that smoking is bad for you. Yet, some adults have decided that the enjoyment of tobacco is worth the potential health consequences. So, when your public education campaign fails to change behaviors, what then?

If not public education or criminal enforcement, how would we force people to engage in healthy behaviors and who would determine what behaviors would be acceptable and which would be prohibited?

This is why I argue that we all should be free to make whatever choices we want so long as you don’t deprive another of life, liberty or property without their consent. The only way that works though is if we’re all responsible for the choices we make in life. If you pay for someone’s bad choices, then we all have every justification to eliminate the freedom of choice. And that’s a slippery slope that makes me very uncomfortable.