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afreemarketguy

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Everything posted by afreemarketguy

  1. First I had to laugh reading the John Maynard Keynes quote. Is there any single person in history who has done more harm than that man and he makes a quote like that. Health care is more expensive in our country because #1 Medicare has increased utilization and increased costs. Americans are getting procedures and tests that they would never get on their own. Self-pay makes us all better consumers. Since procedures and tests are done more frequently, the number of specialists doing them increases which increases costs. The #2 reason health care costs have increased and diminished access is government regulation. We are over licensed (a tax on professions) and have agencies such as the FDA, OSHA, CLIA, and HIPPA which confer almost no benefit to the consumer and increase costs. The #3 reason health care costs have increased is the over-regulation of the insurance industry. Every week some legislator is trying to force insurance companies to pay for the disease du jour (ie, mental health, autism, alzheimer's). Now they want to force insurance companies to offer insurance to any person regardless of risk and then tell the insurance company what to charge for that policy. The government is the cause of our health care mess, not the savior. Maybe if we could dismantle all of the above issues we could begin to work on public education, another mess created by government intervention. “Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism?” - Ayn Rand
  2. Jake, Your comment is spoken like a true subjectivist. You know, some one who believes what they choose to believe instead of studying the facts. It is not wrong to disagree. It is wrong to disagree simply on emotion and without studying the issue. Dennis
  3. Jake, Thank you so much for the comments. BTW, the book was not only peer reviewed but the author enlisted the help of many others working on the human genome project. He, himself, points out many flaws in the work. To me the greatest flaw is the measurement of spirituality. Also, as a member of the medical community who makes a living dissecting information, I can tell you that peer review means nothing. Ben Bernanke's peers all think he is doing a yeoman job because it is what they want to believe. Nevertheless, I believe that there are people who would be subjectivist if they were raised among wolves in the woods. Also, my education, other than studying Aristotle and Ayn Rand, has had little to do with my objectivism. As a matter of fact, I believe that there are people who are objectivist and don't even know it. That describes me many years ago. Furthermore, I am sure that you are aware that many psychologists believe that religion had its beginning about the time that man discovered his mortality. No surprise there. Again, I appreciate your insight.
  4. About the age of 10 or 12 I began to have issues with people allowing others to control their lives. It wasn't just religious leaders, but community leaders as well. It greatly bothered me that everyone else saw this as natural. When I got to college, I met a couple who shared 'Atlas Shrugged' with me. I felt that the book not only explained, but added organization to my thoughts regarding the world around me. Now I am 58 years old and have read most of Ayn Rand's books multiple times. My point is that I feel as though I was hardwired at birth to be an objectivist. In 2003, Dean Hamer, an NIH researcher working on the human genome penned the book, 'The God Gene.' In his book he discusses a gene that is found in spiritual people, about 2/3 of all societies. When activated, this gene is associated with an increase in the neurotransmitter, dopamine. Dopamine is involved in the sensation of pleasure. FYI, drugs that increase dopamine in an area of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens are associated with drug abuse. Nevertheless, one thing that disturbs me is that the subjectivist and the objectivist speak different languages. They see the world with totally different perspectives. Believing in God has never entered my mind. Believing that my government or my employer should and will take care of me for life has never entered my mind. I am curious to hear comments regarding whether or not subjectivism and objectivism may be wholly or somewhat hardwired in us and lying dormant until we receive the proper stimulus. My fear is that if our beliefs are somewhat genetic, our battle is all the more difficult because subjectivist fears will continue to be reborn. Another fear is that the same religious leaders who scorn stem cell research would jump at the chance to create a race of subjectivist robots.
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