Nu-economics

From: "iDRMRSR" <idrmrsr@subgenius.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 29, 2003

I heard some great old fart Economist, some 90 y/o conservative guy whose
name I forget, pose this statement:

WHY do the American people expect their employer to pay for their MEDICAL
care when the employers don't buy their FOOD?

IOW, and I think the guy has a point, people could be doing so much more
with the money wasted on the spiral of higher insurance and higher costs,
and the net effect would be to actually dry up the med bidness, or at least
bring it down to a more realistic cost structure.

Well, SubG's, lemme say...he may be right, but not on THIS planet.

Taking the other tack, though, it occurred to me what the gummint could do
for us all that would put all this RIAA shit to bed once and for all.
Institute some program where you are TAXED for your ENTERTAINMENT!

Make movies, music, cable TV, etc, etc, a gummint, price-controlled program.
Make it illegal to entertain anyone (sports included) unless you have a
Federal Entertainers License. And since we are all PAYING for it jointly,
it don't matter how many copies anybody burns.

Quickly, nobody film stars like Hillary Swank, George Clooney, the Rock,
etc, etc, etc, would be replaced by gummint employees of the US Bureau of
Entertainment.

Either that, or have our EMPLOYERS provide our ENTERTAINMENT instead of our
medical care! A workers' benefit, something for the Unions to bargain hotly
over and strike. And then for retirees, institute Entertainmentcare instead
of Medicare.

Or, hell, go for broke, and do them all together.

Need I also point out that Hollywood et al, the original producers of
"entertainment", are the only sector of the US economy which runs a positive
trade balance! WE DO NOT IMPORT CHEAP CHINESE MOVIES!

Heh, heh. That'd confound the world one big shitload worth.

But the good part is, if you were a union worker, and last night's vapid
sitcom really SUCKED, you could go on STRIKE and cripple the whole country
until they put something better on. This thing could draw folks like we
away from our monitors a few hours a day.

Scary, huh?

[*]
-----
PS, I'm not saying this is a GOOD idea necessarily except maybe for the
politicians...could give them another century of fucking things up.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Wbarwell <Wbarwell@munnged.mylinuxisp.com>

Because, medical insurance is the price they pay for decent employees.
The systems just sort of grew that way, some years back, medical
care became a necessary perk.
This is because, insurance, bought out of pocket, is tres expensive.
Businesses get it in bulk so to speak, and pay less, so it is a cheap perk.
Otherwise, they'd have to pay enough a person could pay out of pocket,
expensive, and that would cost the employer more wages.

Thus we are stuck with that model for the nonce.
A work force without medical care and that means insurance,
is a desperate and unhappy work force that would be voting for
state provided health care that since the tax payer can't pay for,
(that's where we came in) would have to be paid for by business
taxes.

Yer 90 year old fool wasn't thinking, he was ranting.

Without a clue either.

--
When I shake my killfile, I can hear them buzzing!

Cheerful Charlie

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Original file name: Nu-economics.txt - converted on Saturday, 25 September 2004, 02:05