Not Your Money, Not Your Life: Part 2

Obama has stated that he doesn’t want government to take over health care.  Instead, he wants something “uniquely American.”  That is, a public alternative, paid for with tax payers’ money.  If people want to, they can keep their own doctors and keep their former policies.  This public option will compete with private insurers and keep prices down all across the board.

Well, it sounds fantastic.  How could anyone oppose such a great piece of legislation?

This is how:  when the government starts a program, it doesn’t have to worry about turning a profit.  It just has to make the program seem like it’s working.  So when the government creates a “public option” for health care, you can bet it’s going to be cheap.  A lot of people are going to go along with it.  Obama says private companies will compete, but how can they compete with a program that has a seemingly endless flow of tax payers’ money?

Private insurance companies will start to drop employees and go out of business.  Hospitals and organizations will have to start paying their workers less.  Doctors will leave their jobs in search of something that pays better.  Eventually, the “public option” will be one of  the only options. 

We’ve seen that government run health care just doesn’t work.  When people have to pay little, or nothing at all, for medical care, they’re going to take advantage of it.  In Canada you can get lots of treatments for free.  The catch is you may be waiting for your treatment for a few days…or weeks…or months.  People who would have been able to afford treatment may have to wait for an indefinite period of time before they can be seen.

Private companies should be the only option for health care.  Competing companies allow for the best treatments at the lowest costs.  A government option seems like a great plan, but it’s really just wishful thinking.

My Undeserved Raise; Courtesy of the Federal Government

On July 24 the American minimum wage will increase by 70 cents to an arbitrary rate of $7.25 an hour.  Since I work for the minimum wage, I’ll be seeing a fairly large chunk of change being added to my paychecks.  However, I don’t see the increase as necessarily beneficial to me, or to my fellow Americans.  

First of all, relatively few Americans actually work for the minimum wage.  I believe the number is less than five percent.  So already, we have a law that only benefits a relatively small amount of people.  Second of all, increasing minimum wage will increase inflation on the already struggling dollar.  

Perhaps Congress thought they were being nice and giving minimum wage earners a better shot at achieving the American Dream; but do the pros outweigh the cons? 

I’m going to have to say a most emphatic no.  Minimum wage earners are not the only people being affected by this law.  This law has huge consequences for business owners.  They have to pay their workers that 70 cents more and still make a decent profit off their product or service.  In order to do this at a steady rate, they’re going to have to make some cuts, or more likely, increase prices.  When prices increase, you’re going to see a decrease in customers, and when customers stop coming…well, you understand basic economics. 

Business owners should be free to decide for themselves how much they pay their employees.  You might say; “But they’ll just take advantage of their workers and pay them an unspeakably low wage.”  This is not very likely.  Competition between businesses will ensure that workers get paid fairly, without the inflation caused by a minimum wage increase.  If a worker is dissatisfied with one employer, he can find another that will pay him more. 

Letting businesses decide their own employees’ wages is a much more practical way to ensure economic growth.  Businesses will be free to grow, unrestrained by federal regulations. 

Do I really deserve this 70 cent increase at the expense of America’s economy?

The Federal Education Standard of Inadequacy

Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, has just announced his support for a Federal education standard.  He wants to transfer the states’ power to the Federal government because the current system leaves students “totally, inadequately prepared to go into a competitive university, let alone graduate.”

He thinks that having one standard for education will fix this problem.  I completely disagree.  Students are unprepared for college because government operated schools do not have to worry about money.  What I mean is; govenment-employed teachers don’t have the meet the same criteria as teachers that work for, say, a privately run school.  Private schools constantly have to face the demands of the market.  If parents do not think a school is up to par, they can take their money and their children elsewhere.  Public schools don’t have to even think about trying to keep students.  Kids are assigned a school district based on where they live.  This means that each school has a virtual monopoly on the school-age kids in its general area.

The law should be changed so that students can attend public schools out of their district.  If parents were allowed to “shop” for schools, each school would have to compete to keep kids.  That means they would have to face the strain of an open market.  This is a good thing!  Competing schools will try to raise the percentage of students that pass each grade, raise the SOL passing rate, and make their respective school better in general.

If the Secretary of Education gets this Federal standard of education into place, America will see one very large, ineffective monopoly on the school system.  Imagine No Child Left Behind times one thousand.  Every public school student in America will have to be brought down to the level of the slowest person in their class because the government wants to be our parent and make sure that everyone gets the same treatment.

Is Pirating Music Wrong?

According to most of the people I’m around at school, there is nothing wrong with downloading music illegally.  The artists that make the music and the labels that market the music are already rich.  They try to sell us cds for ten or fifteen bucks a pop.  If they think anybody can afford that, they are pretty much asking the public to pirate music online.

I agree that most price tags on cds are astounding, and can defer the general public from making purchases.  However, this does not make it ok to steal the music.  Maybe you don’t consider it stealing; you’re just copying someone else’s files and moving them to your computer or ipod.  You say, ‘how is this different from making someone a mix tape of your favorite music?’

It’s different because when you upload your music to internet sites, you’re giving music to strangers.  These are people you don’t even know, and you’re giving them the music you payed for.  You know that other people will provide the songs that you want, so you think it’s a perfectly rational thing to do.

But whatever, it doesn’t matter how you try to justify it, it’s still illegal to pirate music.  Does stealing become less of a crime when you steal from someone rich?  No!  The artists and music companies that get rich make their money honestly.  They earn it.  Making and producing music is what they do for a living.  If you don’t want to pay fifteen dollars for a cd, then don’t buy it.  I’m sorry, but you are not entitled to other peoples’ goods or services unless you pay them the price that they want.

When you pirate music, all you are doing  is driving up the costs to put music on the market.  Isn’t that obvious?  Thousands of songs are downloaded everyday illegally.  Someone is going to have to take up the slack somewhere.