Peter Schiff Was Right (again)

[Kshartle]

It's nothing like car insurance. I can't buy a Geico policy after I crash my car and have them pay for the repair.

You can't do that this with insurance under Obamacare either.

If I break my arm and go to the hospital and have it set and a cast put on it and go buy an Obamacare policy the next day, they aren't going to pay anything on my broken arm claim for the services I received at the hospital before I bought the policy.

What you are talking about is if I'm a reckless driver (i.e., likely to have a lot of claims) and a I wreck my car today and go buy a car insurance policy tomorrow, are they going to cover the claims from my reckless driving going forward from the effective date of my policy, and the answer is yes.

Think of having cancer as being a reckless driver.

Yes I completely understand all this. Your analogy makes my point entirely.

Yes some emergency care might not be covered with a posthumous policy purchase, but this will not be a compelling reason for people to purchase insurance. Who is going to pay several thousand a year, just to be able to get some emergency care costs lowered? This is a by-product of insurance but not the main purpose. When people pay thousands in premiums annually it's for protection in the event of major debilitating diseases such as cancer which you mentioned.

There might be some people so foolish as to waste money getting covered for emergencies but emergencies are such a tiny part of overall medical costs I don't think it's going to be sufficient to compel people. Humans are smart enough to get this. Friends, family and others who understand that pre-existing conditions will not preclude them from getting insurance will be informing millions of people, particularly the young and healthy to not buy. If young people aren't buying into the welfare ponzi scheme how will insurance companies be able to afford the costs of old and sick welfare patients? They will go broke.

People figure out how to get over on the system ALL THE TIME.  Unless I’m misinterpreting the law this is a glaring loophole that many will try to exploit. Practically everyone wants everything for free. If people can wait until their sick to sign up and pay that’s what they’ll do. It’s what I intend to do. 

[Kshartle]

Only until they make it illegal not to buy.
You read it here first.

They will have to overcome the constitution. Of course they have done that a bazillion times already.

I think they will be content to bankrupt the insurance industry rather than try to get this to succeed.

The mafia wants to be the only insurance game in town, jack up the price on everyone and lower the quality. It's what mafias like to do. Of course they never present it that way. They are always solving a crisis and the solution is always and forever less freedom.

[Kshartle]

KShartle, did you ever watch the video?

I did watch it last night. It's a cartoonish Keynesian propaganda piece that ignores reality. It's written to push the agenda of the money printers, cede control of the economy to them and enrich guys like Dalio and his well-connected friends.

It’s so bad and so mistake riddled I don’t know where to begin.

He claims spending drives the economy. It does not. Production drives the economy. Something must be produced before it can be purchased. Buying something prior to production does nothing. It buys only a promise. The actual economy and wealth of the nation only grows with production.

We don’t have cycles because we borrow. Borrowing does not create the cycles. They cycles are a by-product of the government’s monetary and fiscal policy. Since they heavily influence interest rates, inflation rates and directly interfere by buying things and sticking the taxpayer with the bill they produce the cycles.

The government can cause a lot of economic activity by lowering borrowing costs, encouraging people to take on debt and forcing people to consume more by devaluing their savings. It can use outright theft by spending and buying things we don’t want with it’s fiscal policy. That causes distortions in the market that are unsustainable. The bust and contraction happen when the government is no longer able to sustain the bubble or chooses not to.

There are so many more ways he is wrong I’ll point them out as best I can with a few more posts. It might take a few, nearly every minute is another major error.

This is just Ray trying to put one over on the slav er…citizens. It's a disaster of errors and this guy knows much better. He made a little cartoon propaganda peice and it's basically straight from Keynes. This has all been disproven logically and in practice.

[Kshartle]

It's a cartoonish Keynesian propaganda piece that ignores reality. It's written to push the agenda of the money printers, cede control of the economy to them and enrich guys like Dalio and his well-connected friends.

I realize this statement is proof of nothing and basically calling Ray a doo-doo head. I'll keep that out of any further critiques. It's difficult when I see a video like this and it's so obvious this guy is trying to distort, confuse, distract, mislead etc. etc., the people who's wealth him and his ilk would like to take.

That being said, I'll keep my personal opinion out as best I can and stick strictly to the content. I might not succeed.

[Gumby]

Nobody produces something unless they think that there is a demand for a product. It would be pretty dumb to produce something that didn't have any demand. You can't just produce smelly socks and wait for demand to pick up. People start businesses to meet the demand for something that people need or want. But if people don't have money in their pockets, they can't create that demand in the marketplace. We've already been through this. You can't buy that Ferrari you've always dreamed of because you don't have the money. 

[Mdraf]

Nobody produces something unless they think that there is a demand for a product. It would be pretty dumb to produce something that didn't have any demand. You can't just produce smelly socks and wait for demand to pick up. People start businesses to meet the demand for something that people need or want. But if people don't have money in their pockets, they can't create that demand in the marketplace. We've already been through this. You can't buy that Ferrari you've always dreamed of because you don't have the money.

I generally agree with this but Steve Jobs proved the exception. He said that people don't know what they want until you show it to them (ie iPhone)

[Gumby]

Nobody produces something unless they think that there is a demand for a product. It would be pretty dumb to produce something that didn't have any demand. You can't just produce smelly socks and wait for demand to pick up. People start businesses to meet the demand for something that people need or want. But if people don't have money in their pockets, they can't create that demand in the marketplace. We've already been through this. You can't buy that Ferrari you've always dreamed of because you don't have the money.

I generally agree with this but Steve Jobs proved the exception. He said that people don't know what they want until you show it to them (ie iPhone)

Exactly. But Jobs believed that the demand existed for such a product — we just didn't know it. He wouldn't have made the iPhone if he didn't believe there would be demand for it. Same thing with Twitter — the developers believed that it was a messaging system we needed but didn't know we needed it.

[Mdraf]

the developers believed that it was a messaging system we needed but didn't know we needed it.

Thread hijack alert:

I still don't know we need it!

[Pointedstick]

the developers believed that it was a messaging system we needed but didn't know we needed it.

Thread hijack alert:

I still don't know we need it!

Apparently few people do. Aren't the majority of accounts just bots?

[Kshartle]

Article from Forbes saying expect old and sick people to sign up for Obamacare but not the young and healthy. This is how it will ruin the health insurance industry like I said and is nothing more than a welfare program.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapotheca ... r=yahootix

Quote - "I fully expect that the people who get a good deal out of Obamacare—poorer and sicker individuals—will sign up. The enrollment figures will increase. But the real question isn’t how many people enroll: it’s what kind of people enroll. Two-thirds of the uninsured in America are under the age of 40. What will be the average age of an enrollee on the exchanges? If most enrollees were born before or during the Nixon administration, start worrying."

[notsheigetz]

Article from Forbes saying expect old and sick people to sign up for Obamacare but not the young and healthy. This is how it will ruin the health insurance industry like I said and is nothing more than a welfare program.

The surprising thing to me about Obamacare was that it grew out of the complaints you used to hear over and over about 30-35 million ( or whatever number it was at the time)  people in America without health insurance. I always thought this was about them not having access to healthcare but now that we have Obamacare it appears to me from all the rhetoric that it was much more about those 30 million people not paying into the system. Was this some kind of bait and switch?

[Pointedstick]

The surprising thing to me about Obamacare was that it grew out of the complaints you used to hear over and over about 30-35 million ( or whatever number it was at the time)  people in America without health insurance. I always thought this was about them not having access to healthcare but now that we have Obamacare it appears to me from all the rhetoric that it was much more about those 30 million people not paying into the system. Was this some kind of bait and switch?

Yes. The problem with them not having insurance was that when they got sick, they would go to the emergency room, where they are legally guaranteed treatment even absent any money. A big deal was made of this during the debate over Obamacare before it was passed, I seem to recall.

Of course it would be too EXTREME and RADICAL to even entertain the notion of either repealing the law mandating treatment absent ability to pay, or amending it to have the government pay or something.

[moda0306]

Article from Forbes saying expect old and sick people to sign up for Obamacare but not the young and healthy. This is how it will ruin the health insurance industry like I said and is nothing more than a welfare program.

The surprising thing to me about Obamacare was that it grew out of the complaints you used to hear over and over about 30-35 million ( or whatever number it was at the time)  people in America without health insurance. I always thought this was about them not having access to healthcare but now that we have Obamacare it appears to me from all the rhetoric that it was much more about those 30 million people not paying into the system. Was this some kind of bait and switch?

I think it's a combo.  Make healthy people get insurance and let sick people enter the pool.  If you have the latter without the former, you get adverse selection.

That's why they have the mandate.

[Kshartle]

Article from Forbes saying expect old and sick people to sign up for Obamacare but not the young and healthy. This is how it will ruin the health insurance industry like I said and is nothing more than a welfare program.

The surprising thing to me about Obamacare was that it grew out of the complaints you used to hear over and over about 30-35 million ( or whatever number it was at the time)  people in America without health insurance. I always thought this was about them not having access to healthcare but now that we have Obamacare it appears to me from all the rhetoric that it was much more about those 30 million people not paying into the system. Was this some kind of bait and switch?

I think it's a combo.  Make healthy people get insurance and let sick people enter the pool.  If you have the latter without the former, you get adverse selection.

That's why they have the mandate.

Yes but isn't the enforcement of the mandate just a small penalty? Wasn't it ruled constitutional only because it was so small it could not compel compliance?

B will not stand still while A takes from him to give to C. Some will avoid it by not working, working less, outright non-compliance or trying to become C.

It's just a welfare scheme. My God look how well that has worked. Welfare to cure poverty! umm....it increases poverty. What do you think Obamacare will increase? Does anyone anywhere think the entire population will be healthier, happier and wealthier as a result?

[Pointedstick]

It's just a welfare scheme. My God look how well that has worked. Welfare to cure poverty! umm....it increases poverty. What do you think Obamacare will increase? Does anyone anywhere think the entire population will be healthier, happier and wealthier as a result?

Of course not. You're preaching to the choir.

[notsheigetz]

Yes but isn't the enforcement of the mandate just a small penalty? Wasn't it ruled constitutional only because it was so small it could not compel compliance?

Only read the snippets in the news but I thought it was ruled constitutional because Roberts construed it as a tax.

Even so, I think the penalty amount is set to go up in the future and won't end up being so small.

I think this could end up backfiring on the democrats. If they were counting on those 30-35 million people without insurance being grateful and voting democrat from now on they might be mistaken. A large tax bill from the IRS tends to bring out the conservative instincts in a lot of people.

[Kshartle]

Yes but isn't the enforcement of the mandate just a small penalty? Wasn't it ruled constitutional only because it was so small it could not compel compliance?

Only read the snippets in the news but I thought it was ruled constitutional because Roberts construed it as a tax.

It was considered a tx because it wasn't small enough to compel behavior was the point if I remember.

[MediumTex]

A lot of these young healthy people are not going to buy health insurance. 

I saw a poll the other day that showed that around a third of young people aren't even aware that they will soon be required to buy health insurance.

If you explained to some 30 year old that the idea is to make the 30 year olds pay more into the system than they get out so that the 50 year olds can get more out than they pay in, I can imagine him saying something like:

"Okay.  Are the 50 year olds going to be helping the 30 year olds pay off their student loan debt as well?  I mean, that's fair, right?  The 50 year olds didn't have to run up a bunch of student loan debt when they were in school because college was way cheaper 30 years ago than it is today, just like health care for the 50 year olds was a lot cheaper 30 years ago than it is today.  Why do I have to subsidize their rising costs if they aren't willing to subsidize mine?"

[Pointedstick]

"Okay.  Are the 50 year olds going to be helping the 30 year olds pay off their student loan debt as well?  I mean, that's fair, right?  The 50 year olds didn't have to run up a bunch of student loan debt when they were in school because college was way cheaper 30 years ago than it is today, just like health care for the 50 year olds was a lot cheaper 30 years ago than it is today.  Why do I have to subsidize their rising costs if they aren't willing to subsidize mine?"

Now if only people who thought that way voted. My, how different things would be.

[notsheigetz]

If you explained to some 30 year old that the idea is to make the 30 year olds pay more into the system than they get out so that the 50 year olds can get more out than they pay in, I can imagine him saying something like:

"Okay.  Are the 50 year olds going to be helping the 30 year olds pay off their student loan debt as well?  I mean, that's fair, right?  The 50 year olds didn't have to run up a bunch of student loan debt when they were in school because college was way cheaper 30 years ago than it is today, just like health care for the 50 year olds was a lot cheaper 30 years ago than it is today.  Why do I have to subsidize their rising costs if they aren't willing to subsidize mine?"

Basically, I think you are saying that once the 30-year-olds understand how socialism really works, as opposed to what they have been led to believe during their years of youthful indoctrination, they won't like it so well.

I think this is very possible, and maybe even probable.

[MediumTex]

If you explained to some 30 year old that the idea is to make the 30 year olds pay more into the system than they get out so that the 50 year olds can get more out than they pay in, I can imagine him saying something like:

"Okay.  Are the 50 year olds going to be helping the 30 year olds pay off their student loan debt as well?  I mean, that's fair, right?  The 50 year olds didn't have to run up a bunch of student loan debt when they were in school because college was way cheaper 30 years ago than it is today, just like health care for the 50 year olds was a lot cheaper 30 years ago than it is today.  Why do I have to subsidize their rising costs if they aren't willing to subsidize mine?"

Basically, I think you are saying that once the 30-year-olds understand how socialism really works, as opposed to what they have been led to believe during their years of youthful indoctrination, they won't like it so well.

I think this is very possible, and maybe even probable.

Yeah, a lot of things are going to suck going forward for people in the 25-45 age group right now.

They are still struggling with the own student loans and they will soon be trying to send their own kids to college.  During the remainder of their careers they will also have to pay enough in taxes for the government to support a vastly expanded population of old people who are no longer working.

To add insult to injury, members of this generation of people who have had (and will continue to have) so many hands in their pockets, whose members have gone off to fight and get blown up all over the world in dumb wars, who will be paying many of the bills for the generation that came before them as well as the generation that will come after them, who don't have access to the defined benefit pension plans that their parents and grandparents did, and who have had mostly crappy investment performance their entire investing careers (which will make it much harder for them to retire than it was for their parents) are commonly thought of as slackers.

[notsheigetz]

Yeah, a lot of things are going to suck going forward for people in the 25-45 age group right now.

They are still struggling with the own student loans and they will soon be trying to send their own kids to college.  During the remainder of their careers they will also have to pay enough in taxes for the government to support a vastly expanded population of old people who are no longer working.

The whole student loan/cost of education thing boggles my mind. I managed to save enough money working part-time as a busboy in high school to pay my tuition at the Ohio State University. My how things have changed.

I have co-workers about 10 years younger than me putting kids through college without loans and although they don't share the full extent of it I get the impression it is VERY expensive. There was a time when sending your kids away to a nice college was considered an upper-class thing but now it seems to be a required ticket just to enter the middle class.

I think it is eventually going to sink in with the younger generations about the debts that we have been heaping upon them. In fact, I have seen it already in comments expressed in a few forums. The level of vitriol has been kind of eye-opening.

[Libertarian666]

If you explained to some 30 year old that the idea is to make the 30 year olds pay more into the system than they get out so that the 50 year olds can get more out than they pay in, I can imagine him saying something like:

"Okay.  Are the 50 year olds going to be helping the 30 year olds pay off their student loan debt as well?  I mean, that's fair, right?  The 50 year olds didn't have to run up a bunch of student loan debt when they were in school because college was way cheaper 30 years ago than it is today, just like health care for the 50 year olds was a lot cheaper 30 years ago than it is today.  Why do I have to subsidize their rising costs if they aren't willing to subsidize mine?"

Basically, I think you are saying that once the 30-year-olds understand how socialism really works, as opposed to what they have been led to believe during their years of youthful indoctrination, they won't like it so well.

I think this is very possible, and maybe even probable.

Yeah, a lot of things are going to suck going forward for people in the 25-45 age group right now.

They are still struggling with the own student loans and they will soon be trying to send their own kids to college.  During the remainder of their careers they will also have to pay enough in taxes for the government to support a vastly expanded population of old people who are no longer working.

Have to? Any government program can be terminated without notice if you get a working majority with Congress and the President. In another 20 years or so there aren't going to be that many old people relative to the younger ones, who are going to be very tired of paying for everything.

To add insult to injury, members of this generation of people who have had (and will continue to have) so many hands in their pockets, whose members have gone off to fight and get blown up all over the world in dumb wars, who will be paying many of the bills for the generation that came before them as well as the generation that will come after them, who don't have access to the defined benefit pension plans that their parents and grandparents did, and who have had mostly crappy investment performance their entire investing careers (which will make it much harder for them to retire than it was for their parents) are commonly thought of as slackers.

[Pointedstick]

The whole student loan/cost of education thing boggles my mind. I managed to save enough money working part-time as a busboy in high school to pay my tuition at the Ohio State University. My how things have changed.

I have co-workers about 10 years younger than me putting kids through college without loans and although they don't share the full extent of it I get the impression it is VERY expensive.

It's like $50k+ for a public school and $150k+ for a private school. I know someone who's currently attending a private liberal arts school (the worst offenders IMHO) whose total cost is in the realm of $250k I believe. Don't ask if she's studying anything of economic value. You really don't want to know.

The good news is that if you're poor, schools with a high endowment will often waive much or all of the cost. The bad news is that if you were responsible and saved the money, they just take it. Surprise!

[Kshartle]

The whole student loan/cost of education thing boggles my mind. I managed to save enough money working part-time as a busboy in high school to pay my tuition at the Ohio State University. My how things have changed.

I have co-workers about 10 years younger than me putting kids through college without loans and although they don't share the full extent of it I get the impression it is VERY expensive.

It's like $50k+ for a public school and $150k+ for a private school. I know someone who's currently attending a private liberal arts school (the worst offenders IMHO) whose total cost is in the realm of $250k I believe. Don't ask if she's studying anything of economic value. You really don't want to know.

The good news is that if you're poor, schools with a high endowment will often waive much or all of the cost. The bad news is that if you were responsible and saved the money, they just take it. Surprise!

Wait the government scheme to help make higher education more affordable and achievable for young people has resulted in skyrocketing prices and worthless degrees? Who could have predicted that government subsidies would lead to higher prices and over-supply?

hmmmmmm?

What is going to happen with heathcare now? hmmmmmm

Maybe if the government can just borrow and spend we can have a "beautiful deleveraging".