Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
So Shep's spot here has voided the other 95% of Fox News's coverage on this? Good to know.
95% of everyone's coverage. Hysteria everywhere.
True, they're all profit driven corporate media, and they're all going along the angle of 'If it bleeds, it leads" but, well here you go with Fox's re-signed up Medical Expert
Dr. Keith Ablow
Colorado--ready to be shitty
I hope this isn't real. Long story short, complete ban on abortions, prevention of cervical cancer operations, and police may arrest in incidents of miscarriage or stillbirth.
I have a hard time seeing a bill like this pass, but each time one comes it reminds me there are people who think of women as baby formation tanks, nothing more.
I hope this isn't real. Long story short, complete ban on abortions, prevention of cervical cancer operations, and police may arrest in incidents of miscarriage or stillbirth.
I have a hard time seeing a bill like this pass, but each time one comes it reminds me there are people who think of women as baby formation tanks, nothing more.
Then they should write the bill with fewer holes. Their intent is not an absolute. What a person says and what they want aren't always the same.
Last edited:
GasBandit
Staff member
Seems like politicians' kids just can't keep their noses clean.
Other states have a similar law, but excludes the situations I mentioned. This one does not. There's nothing to stop them from writing it like other states have, but they didn't. They chose not to. The worst case scenario I posted would be considered a victory by certain people.
Necronic
Staff member
I would be curious to hear some of the more libertarian members of our board (not looking at any one person named after a semi-obscure late 90's video game character in particular...) to defend what I see as the arguably total failure of two of the largest privatized/for-profit ventures that traditionally were government managed: For Profit universities and For Profit Prisons. Both of these have traditionally been far more controlled by governments (although there have been many private universities, they haven't been for profit), and both are pretty reviled as completely sacrificing their ability to do their jobs correctly due to their profit focused nature.
In principle the free-market should have cleaned both of these up years ago, but both of these bump up against what I see as real limitations of the free market:
1) Efficient Markets don't actually exist: Free Marketism assumes markets are rational, that the purchasers know what they are buying and will make decisions on that. If this were true then the for-profit university system would have been fixed decades ago, but in reality markets are not efficient. New purchasers/students enter the market with similarly limited understanding of what they are purchasing and get duped into the for-profit university system time and time again. This is also somewhat true with for-profit prisons, as these have very limited visibility.
2) Barrier for entry: This is a big problem with for-profit prisons. It could be possible for higher quality providers to enter and compete, but the barrier for entry on very large systems like this severely limits competition.
Anyways, curious what they libertarian thoughts are for these two institutional failures.
(oh and here's the article that got me thinking about it http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/...rom-easily-treatable-illnesses-to-save-money/)
In principle the free-market should have cleaned both of these up years ago, but both of these bump up against what I see as real limitations of the free market:
1) Efficient Markets don't actually exist: Free Marketism assumes markets are rational, that the purchasers know what they are buying and will make decisions on that. If this were true then the for-profit university system would have been fixed decades ago, but in reality markets are not efficient. New purchasers/students enter the market with similarly limited understanding of what they are purchasing and get duped into the for-profit university system time and time again. This is also somewhat true with for-profit prisons, as these have very limited visibility.
2) Barrier for entry: This is a big problem with for-profit prisons. It could be possible for higher quality providers to enter and compete, but the barrier for entry on very large systems like this severely limits competition.
Anyways, curious what they libertarian thoughts are for these two institutional failures.
(oh and here's the article that got me thinking about it http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/...rom-easily-treatable-illnesses-to-save-money/)
Those two PA judges wouldn't have sold kids to a state-run prison. Can't get more obvious than that.
GasBandit
Staff member
When it comes to universities, I wonder how much of it is a "correction" from the longstanding assumption/assertion that "you have to go to college, it's just what you do, if you want to get a job." Also, difficulties finding employment aren't limited to "for profit" universities, and indeed many of the most prestigious universities are private ones - Columbia. Harvard. Standford. Yale. Duke. Princeton. MIT. Cornell. Brown. All private universities. And yes, that means "for profit." They're not owned and operated by government, and they make their employees money (especially at the upper levels and in some cases in the sports program). That Devry, ITT, or Full Sail isn't getting someone a 6 figure income out of the box is no more of a failure of the market than it would a failure of capitalism for someone to try to live entirely on pop tarts and ramen - they're available in the same supermarket as the healthy stuff, after all, but the fact that someone could try eating them exclusively and suffer horrendously for doing so doesn't mean capitalism/the marketplace has failed.
So far as prisons go, it isn't the for-profit prisons that go around arresting and sentencing people, thus causing our prison overpopulation problem - it's the government. Our laws are out of kilter. We criminalize harmless (or at least victimless) crimes, for example sending otherwise benign individuals to prison for marijuana possession, and in turn make our prisons "crime universities" where they "graduate" to being harder, more violent people with a likelihood of recidivism. The trend has been to make incarceration easier to achieve yet also make prison less of a deterrent for those of actual violent criminal tendencies. Heck, in the 19th century, everything from GTA (back then it was called "horse thievery") up was basically considered a capital crime, and we didn't seem to have prison overcrowding issues. At the risk of being called out for espousing a certain author's viewpoints again, I'd say that we need to have another look at what constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment. I assert that if punishment isn't "cruel," it's not really punishment, and if it isn't "unusual" then it becomes accepted as de rigueur and therefore no real deterrent.[DOUBLEPOST=1413901349,1413901291][/DOUBLEPOST]
So far as prisons go, it isn't the for-profit prisons that go around arresting and sentencing people, thus causing our prison overpopulation problem - it's the government. Our laws are out of kilter. We criminalize harmless (or at least victimless) crimes, for example sending otherwise benign individuals to prison for marijuana possession, and in turn make our prisons "crime universities" where they "graduate" to being harder, more violent people with a likelihood of recidivism. The trend has been to make incarceration easier to achieve yet also make prison less of a deterrent for those of actual violent criminal tendencies. Heck, in the 19th century, everything from GTA (back then it was called "horse thievery") up was basically considered a capital crime, and we didn't seem to have prison overcrowding issues. At the risk of being called out for espousing a certain author's viewpoints again, I'd say that we need to have another look at what constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment. I assert that if punishment isn't "cruel," it's not really punishment, and if it isn't "unusual" then it becomes accepted as de rigueur and therefore no real deterrent.[DOUBLEPOST=1413901349,1413901291][/DOUBLEPOST]
I wasn't aware judges were privately employed in Pennsylvania. If they aren't, how is this a failure of libertarianism? It sounds more like a government failure to me.
Last edited:
That wasn't the question.
I think what he sees as the failure of the private prison system is it creates an incentive for putting more people in jail, and like all private industry is designed to grow, which is the exact opposite of what society wants.
When you add in that blacks are targeted at a greater percentage than whites and make up a much larger portion of the prison population, the prison system appears to be a way to create a second class citizen, one which can't vote and can't get jobs. This creates a cycle which is almost impossible to get out of.
From an economic standpoint, private prisons are a booming success.
When you add in that blacks are targeted at a greater percentage than whites and make up a much larger portion of the prison population, the prison system appears to be a way to create a second class citizen, one which can't vote and can't get jobs. This creates a cycle which is almost impossible to get out of.
From an economic standpoint, private prisons are a booming success.
GasBandit
Staff member
... it wasn't?
I'm interpreting this as "how has the private sector caused this to fail" and in the PA example the failure seems to stem from government corruption/collusion.
I've yet to see such a thing as a "non profit" University. It's like saying that College sports are about the spirit of competition and not making money.
Honestly, the failure of universities in the free market is simple: they were given access to free money by the government, decided that it would be stupid not to take the free money, and raised tuition to get as much as they could. It's the same problem with minimum wage, though without a lot of the wider implications... without some sort of method to control how much cash a private company can grab, there is nothing to prevent them from trying to take it all.
My solution? Cap how much a university can receive from the government (as tuition assistance and student loans). It's no secret that many universities charge about as much as the average student can expect to get in government tuition assistance and loans. Control that and tuition will drop to a level that students can reasonably expect to get as assistance.
Regardless, the student loan market is going to crash just like the stock market and housing bubble.
My solution? Cap how much a university can receive from the government (as tuition assistance and student loans). It's no secret that many universities charge about as much as the average student can expect to get in government tuition assistance and loans. Control that and tuition will drop to a level that students can reasonably expect to get as assistance.
Regardless, the student loan market is going to crash just like the stock market and housing bubble.
It's not just government money. My alma mater's cashier department worked under the assumption that money owed by the student was paid by the parents. Hell I couldn't apply for financial aid through the school without faxing them copies of my parents tax returns (which they then proceeded to "lose" and made no effort to find, until I made them call up my dad to explain to him why they let his personal financial information get lost into the wild). More people need to realize that the customer is the person paying for the service. If the student isn't responsible for paying their tuition then the University doesn't give a damn about them or their education.[DOUBLEPOST=1413902890,1413902776][/DOUBLEPOST]
I have a friend who's wife has an art degree, and complains about her student loans. I just can't even fathom the thought process there.
I honestly don't blame her. Getting design work often requires having an art degree, personally knowing someone at the company, or a willingness to work for MUCH less than you deserve for your time. People still treat artistic talent as some kind of effortless skill that isn't worth paying for when what your actually paying for is the years it took to refine that skill.[DOUBLEPOST=1413903528,1413903385][/DOUBLEPOST]
This is actually fixing itself to a degree... many students will tell professors, point blank, that they aren't going to buy a $300 book for a class and then proceed to drop the class. Professors without/low students tend to ether get fired, told to find a cheaper book, or get turned into an associate professor... which means teaching 5 intro classes a semester.
If she had interest in being a designer I would agree with you. Sorry I should have clarified better or not posted that. I don't want to harp on it more, but lets just say she had to be talked into getting adding an education degree on top of it.[DOUBLEPOST=1413904181,1413903663][/DOUBLEPOST]
It's a tough nut to crack. I got lucky with my books, while expensive I don't think I paid more than $150 for a single book. Things like requiring a book to fit a series of courses (this was the case for all three of my Calculus classes, and would have been for the first two levels of Intro to Comp Sci if I hadn't started in the spring semester (they switched the book over the summer).
NCSU at the time (or maybe only certain departments) had a policy that every course had to have a book assigned in it. I've had several professors tell us to return them on the first day. That needs to go.[DOUBLEPOST=1413904461][/DOUBLEPOST]Books aren't even the sneaky part of paying for college. Everyone expects to have to buy books and know they're going to be expensive. What's borderline criminal is the Fees (almost half of what tuition was). It's a lot easier for a school to raise fees than tuition, and their largely hidden (just like on your phone bill) when advertising the cost.
This. This right here is the "failure."
The thought is that without incentive to grow the business, the amount of corruption/collusion (such as with red light cameras) and "targeted" legislation (in order to artificially select preferred groups for prosecution or to increase the overall influx of inmates) would go down due to a reduction in the temptation to increase that profit (at the expense of inmates).
--Patrick
Necronic
Staff member
I was specifically talking about for profit universities (like DeVry or universit of Phoenix. That is different from a state or non-profit private university, and they are free market failures since they don't actually provide a service of value yet continue to turn heavy profits. I do agree with Ashburner though, Government subsidies are likely to blame for this.
And as for DeVry and engineering the only thing I saw is that at one point that had an ABET accredited Engineering Technology degree. Which, honestly, isn't really an engineering degree. So no, a DeVry engineering degree is not the same as one from a state school. (Correct me if I'm wrong though)
Ed: I am mistaken, DeVry has a few other abet accredited programs
And as for DeVry and engineering the only thing I saw is that at one point that had an ABET accredited Engineering Technology degree. Which, honestly, isn't really an engineering degree. So no, a DeVry engineering degree is not the same as one from a state school. (Correct me if I'm wrong though)
Ed: I am mistaken, DeVry has a few other abet accredited programs
The following programs, at the following locations, are accredited by the Engineering Technology Accreditation Commission of ABET (ETAC of ABET), www.abet.org
- Baccalaureate Biomedical Engineering Technology:Addison, Chicago, Columbus, Decatur, Ft. Washington, Fremont, Irving, Midtown Manhattan, Miramar, North Brunswick, Orlando, Phoenix, Tinley Park
- Baccalaureate Computer Engineering Technology: Addison,Alpharetta, Arlington, Chicago, Columbus, Decatur, Federal Way, Ft. Washington, Fremont, Houston, Irving, Kansas City, Long Beach, Midtown Manhattan, Miramar, Orlando, Phoenix, Pomona, Sherman Oaks, Tinley Park, Westminster
- Baccalaureate Electronics Engineering Technology: Addison,Alpharetta, Arlington, Chicago, Columbus, Decatur, Federal Way, Ft. Washington, Fremont, Houston, Irving, Kansas City, Long Beach, Midtown Manhattan, Miramar, New Jersey (North Brunswick, Paramus), Orlando, Phoenix, Pomona, Sacramento, Sherman Oaks, Tinley Park, Westminster
Last edited:
Necronic
Staff member
Also, a private non-profit university is in no way comparable to a private for-profit university in this argument. Because non-profit universities have a non market based motivation/mission (they do not exist to make money), meaning they are not governed by free market principles, where for profit universities ARE driven by profit incentives.
This is a really important distinction that, frankly, I'm surprised some people are missing here.
This is a really important distinction that, frankly, I'm surprised some people are missing here.
pretty much. If you rack up 100k in student loans for a degree to get you a job in a field where the average salary is 40k I have a hard time finding sympathy. That's not an issue of consumer protection, that's just a poor decision.
Not really, just didn't see it as relevant. I assume that the leadership of ANY organization that operates "for profit" will eventually realize that they can increase their profit if they start doing things just a little cheaper or a little more human rights violation-y, and things will just slippery slope their way down until suddenly you're wondering what happened. This can be avoided, but it takes someone with enough force of personality like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk operating the tiller to resist that pressure, usually because they have some sort of cockamamie "vision" they're pursuing that drowns out the siren song of profit motive.
--Patrick
Necronic
Staff member
Uhm. I don't...I'm really confused now.
Isn't the entire premise of free market capitalism the idea that it's self correcting and Darwinian? That's the failure, the market isn't correcting itself here.
I feel like you guys are making the argument for me against efficient market hypothesis when you are blaming the consumer making irrational choices...
Isn't the entire premise of free market capitalism the idea that it's self correcting and Darwinian? That's the failure, the market isn't correcting itself here.
I feel like you guys are making the argument for me against efficient market hypothesis when you are blaming the consumer making irrational choices...
Some of this is because the way it is supposed to work is that unfair/substandard/"bad" businesses are supposed to die when the populace stops patronizing them, thereby starving them to death. This mechanic fails to function when a business becomes a monopoly/oligopoly (cable television) or other situation where the "consumer" loses the ability to make the choice whether or not to patronize at all (prisons).
--Patrick
Necronic
Staff member
@Steinman, no, you don't need to read the article, it's just what got me thinking. Your statement is more or less what I am saying (although I wouldn't go so far as to say free markets aren't entirely self-correcting, jus that they sometimes fail to self-correct)
Anyways
Here, from libertarianism.org:
http://www.libertarianism.org/media/libertarian-view/what-libertarians-mean-free-market
However, it's worth also noting the point on "voluntary". It could be argued that subsidies to for-profit universities are a form of force, since taxpayers are forced to carry the financial burden of the transaction. I think Ashburner really hit the nail on the head here.
The problem isn't really a failure of free market principles, it's a failure of a botched government involvement in a free market.
Anyways
Here, from libertarianism.org:
http://www.libertarianism.org/media/libertarian-view/what-libertarians-mean-free-market
Note the "win win" statement in the middle is one part that matters. When that is true then yes, it works great, but University of Phoenix is an example of the opposite. It's a lose-win. No value is being added to the consumer, the only real action occurring is the transfer of wealth, and a phenomenal expenditure of time (from both parties). This is a serious net loss of value for the economy.
However, it's worth also noting the point on "voluntary". It could be argued that subsidies to for-profit universities are a form of force, since taxpayers are forced to carry the financial burden of the transaction. I think Ashburner really hit the nail on the head here.
The problem isn't really a failure of free market principles, it's a failure of a botched government involvement in a free market.
The idea is sound: provide underprivileged students with access to enough free money to go to school (as long as they keep their grades up, stay sober, and stay out of trouble). It works to level the playing field and give the talented the means to succeed, whatever their economic background. This is a goal worth pursuing. The real problem is that the colleges were simply allowed to raise their rates exponentially, not that the government opened the floodgates to help the poor.
The solution is obvious: require colleges that accept financial aid in the form of student aid to cap their tuition increases in line with inflation or to some other government approved rate. This will prevent tuition prices from rising in the future.
Whatever solution the government pursues, the worst thing we can do is grant amnesty on student loans without first attempting to correct the market forces that caused the problem to begin with.
No surprise there.