Left foot forward, a blog for communists I guess, has a new thread which discusses the Air Vent. Apparently they commissioned a research group to discuss the release of climategate emails. You can see the little tiny ball they gave the Air Vent as a link to other blogs. Of course they labeled the links all wrong and placed tAV at the farthest reaches.
This is how they describe us Air Vent bloggers.
Tracing the online paper trail back to its source, the researchers concluded that:
• The ‘Climategate’ story was first aired on climate denier blog The Air Vent, before wending its way onto more popular sceptic sites Climate Audit and Watts Up With That, and then featured by James Delingpole in his Daily Telegraph blog – whose followers propagated it further;
Again with the denialist name calling, TAV DOES NOT DENY GLOBAL WARMING!! Jackasses, but look at the links. They rightly linked to the blackboard, oddly linked to nofrakkingconsensus or noconsensus.org , which I believe started after tAV and actually I’ve had very little contact with. Oddly there are no links whatsoever to CA or WUWT, whomever released the climategate files was very familiar with the odd position this blog took in the pile, better than these internet pro’s. Prior to climategate, most of the traffic here was the CA crowd. More CA readers came than even WUWT readers despite being in both blogrolls. Now WUWT leads the pack. No link to Bishop Hill either, despite that being one of the first links on the blogroll.
Anyway, it’s interesting how they try to define the history for the benefit of others. It’s odd that they wouldn’t send an email to ask a question but I suspect it’s my political posts which have changed me (and you) from a reasonable skeptic crowd to evil denialists. Sorryish for that readers.
If you feel like helping them get their story straight, here is the link. I couldn’t leave a comment there myself because the comment link wouldn’t work.
H/T: Lucia, who’s pingback got my attention.
the Air Vent 
Jeff,
they obviously read your blog and are aware of your political position.
That is way your bubble is located on the FAR LEFT.
I noticed the weird linkages too. I’d never even heard of “nofrakinconsensus” and had to google to find the blog!
I hope Oxfam didn’t pay a lot of money for the chart. Made me laugh a lot.
#2, I copied a post from nofrakkingconsensus about a month ago(with permission) that’s really the only contact I’ve had. Someone dropped a link here with the URL noconsensus.org so I looked it up. I believe tAV was the first to have the noconsensus URL.
Is the upside to not being influential that you don’t have to worry that these people have cross-hairs on you?
I trying to decide if I really want to be a player in this blog business. As it is HT gets just about no traffic.
Why is the IPCC there at the top if the article was about the climategate emails? I do not think they have made any official comment on them that I am aware of. And indeed, that would seem normal. The emails do not directly impact them (they were not talking about compromising the AR4 report after all).
Wonderful comment by haraldbange at Pielke Jr. – ‘Why have they put the skeptics on the left?’
So, on the Skeptical side is one media organisation, but on the Supporters side there are 7. Also, they have NASA and Met Office. I thought these orgs were supposed to be impartial. In the middle. Like the IPCC(!).
Aside from the mis-spelling of his name, Pielke seems to have a foot in each camp, yet I have listed him as a skeptical site for the last 4 months or more.
It is quite interesting to look at the size of the balls (no indication in the article at how the sizes were established). The number of large balls on the left are double the number of large balls on the right.
Finally, here is the quote of the article: “Suddenly after Climategate, it became acceptable for the mainstream media to question the fundamentals of climate science.” OMG, how rude!
One thing strikes me about these sorts of conclusions – why do they never ask us? AGWers jump to all sorts of conclusions about why we think the way we do (or even what we think) but they never do the obvious thing of asking us.
Wouldn’t they have saved a lot of time and money by reading Climategate CruTape Letters, WUWT or asking ‘where did you hear about climategate?’.
Or would that be too obvious?
#9,
TinyCo2, Saving time and money? Can you spell hourly rate? Consulting? Results inconclusive? More research required?
Wait, they’ve got the WSJ on the Supporter’s side? That’s not where I would’ve put them. And sure as heck wouldn’t have put the IPCC in the middle.
I think the commenters on this thread and Lucia’s are missing something actually crucial and chilling: just what the hell is a humanitarian NGO with a net income of 180 Million pounds (70 million of which come from governments) doing commissioning a study on skeptic networking? The Profero page the LFF linked to has a bit more to say about it. The word “progressive” seems to leap off the page. I’d be concerned less about your position on the chart than the fact that a well-funded private entity is building an enemies list and a strategic map that can be used to take down those they consider their enemies.
Moi? Maybe I’m being conceited in thinking they refer to me?
Considering that I don’t blog as such, I’m intrigued as to my apparent prominent position.
Jeff,
I reckon this was some kind of route trace obtained within the last month or so, but quite a long time after the Climategate email release. I don’t recall having any mention of Climategate on my website so it is unlikely to be directly related.
#5 Andrew:
Don’t be disheartened. Maybe Jeff will put you on the blog roll?
#14, The vast majority of my linked traffic in and out is from WUWT, Lucia, CA and Bishop.
#13,
Same question that’s bothering me REP. The project sponsor is just a complete disconnect, and it makes me deeply uneasy.
The lion may lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.
The “evil denialist” categorization has little to do with politics in the usual sense and a lot to do with the self-serving opportunistic interests of whoever is using it. The climategate Team have used the sterotype of skeptic/denialist primarily to label those who have been critical of the Team’s research specifically, in support of their dubious excuses. And much of the climate science community seems to have accepted this without question. As you imply, it’s rhetoric rather than analysis, but if you criticize the hockey stick or the IPCC in too strong terms you’ll be a “denialist” whatever your political leanings. Just look at the way Joe Romm insults Roger Pielke Jr.
If you’re a “climate denier” are you denying the existence of climate? In favor of…what? Moon-like conditions, perhaps?
“…it’s my political posts which have changed me (and you) from a reasonable skeptic crowd to evil denialists. Sorryish for that readers.”
This evil denier of climate (are moon trips the next “in” thing?) likes your politics. No apologies needed. Keep it up.
Do Al Gore worshipers (such as LF Forward) get points for sacrificing evil climate deniers to His Alarmistness? What do they use in place of rosaries and other ritual objects?
I would not waste my time with this silliness of networking. I think this is a round about way for some of these warmists activists to keep the faith. They can believe that they continue to have the righteous path and just need to regroup against this giant network that they just discovered/invented.
I’d let them be to salve their wounds if that is what they think they need. For the rest of us – back to the science.
LOL. I guess even the supporters network doesn’t want to be associated with Joe Romm and Climate Progress.
#20 Bob,
I noticed that too. Those commissioned to make the plot may have had some different instructions. For instance, show the path that the emails were released by. Or some such thing. Whatever they did, linking to noconsensus.wordpress.com to nofrakkingconsensus was the first step and first mistake. Leaving off CA, WUWT and Bishop from tAV links was another.
Where is the “big oil” link we keep hearing about?
Thanks for the post, Jeff. I got a chance to read and so I ‘bounced around’
Just a few quick comments: Lucia’s ‘addition’ to the networking diagram is choice. Wegman had a networking analysis…I hope they’re not trying to…what? Then there is the issue of the language. I’ll call myself a ‘lukewarmer’ in order to be honest. My ‘lukecooler’ joke is only in order to be a loyal opposition.
“Climate Denier”? Who can deny climate? Maybe it’s UK shorthand but I said (to myself), “Huh?”
I don’t read the WSJ regularly but shouldn’t WSJ be on the left of the diagram, or maybe it was just the editorial page? US, MSM-wise, they had some articles, IIRC.
They are on to me. I may have to release my Screeching Mercury Monkeys
Just like the rest of so called climate science that starts with a conclusion and makes up evidence that fits the research this attempt is sloppy and haphazard with little care of the facts.
If I had been commissioned to do this (and I have done similar work in the past), I would have used Alexa and page ranking combined with Google news searches, visited the results and looked at their blogrolls. I would have come up with different results, but they probably would have been just as ‘wrong’ in a different direction. This kind of rough and ready analysis is usually done on the fly and on the cheap and is meant to come up with a 5 mile altitude look at the lay of the land. I would have bid below $10,000 to do this and would have come up with a report in about 2 weeks.
I can think of a dozen reasons why Oxfam would commission this type of report, but fewer reasons why they would release it and no reasons at all why they neglected (sob!) me.
Oxfam is an ex officio adviser to several sections of the UK government and may well have been asked to measure the depth and breadth of opposition to mainstream views, especially with an eye to UK bloggers–which makes it really weird that they didn’t include Bishop Hill (unless my eyesight has completely failed me).
Oho! Just saw the Bishop’s bubble.
Come on guys, admit it, they’re on to our well funded organisation at last. So far though they think we are decentralsed and haven’t found out about our world headquarters stuffed with 5000 researchers and 200 of the top scientists.
Its only a matter of time before the brilliant people who researched this article find that centre though. They already know we can only continue our activities through the billions a year we get from Big Oil. The games up, its a fair cop. Evacuate the centre immediately and destroy our records. A helicopter will be coming for you soon Jeff-take only what you need.
Tonyb
The quality of the analysis on the left is, at least, consistent. But then it can’t get much worse.
I don’t understand “Twitter” so why is it that 90% of the comments there just refer to themselves???
# 22
I bought gas yesterday.
Does that count?
http://www.oxfam.org/en/about/what/mission
“Oxfam International is an international group of independent non-governmental organizations dedicated to fighting poverty and related injustice around the world. The Oxfams work together internationally to achieve greater impact by their collective efforts”
So what has that got to do with climate bloggers? Or perhaps Oxfam have noticed that people are being unjust towards the sceptics, who are poor because they aren’t being paid by Big Oil?
Oxfam clearly got taken by a just as clueless PR firm judging by the “quality” of this graphic. These folks just can’t think outside the meme…
Left foot forward, two steps back. Who funds those commies, anyway? Why do they not fess up about their dirty money funding sources?
“Left foot forward, a blog for communists I guess….”
Jeff, there are almost no communists any more. The Soviet Union fell. Its not a serious political movement any more. There are probably as many communists left now as there are, I don’t know, Millerites or real card carrying Nazis. This is complete craziness. Its actually incomprehensible, and what gets even more bizarre is when you start talking as if the Democratic Party, which to most Europeans is about as far to the right as the Republicans, indistinguishably so in fact, were somehow left wing or communist. Where on earth do you get this from? You actually think that the health program is in some way left wing, when its a classic cave-in to vested interests in the typical way of traditional right wing regimes.
My goodness, this is very weird stuff indeed. And it has, thank goodness, nothing to do with climate! But it does make me worry about America. Maybe something dreadful has happened to the drinking water? Its the only explanation that seems plausible.
You have two parties there, which follow the identical foreign policy. One starts a war, the othber goes on with it. They have essentially similar policies domestically. The rhetoric is different, the geographical interests they represent are different. But in terms of political ideology and policies, in blind taste testing, we’d be very hard put to tell them one from the other. Oh, there is a difference, one fulminates about left wing communism. The other fulminates about something called neo conservatism. Why, who knows, it seems to be something like singing different hymns. But that’s about it.
#35, Calling a government takeover of 1/6th of the economy right wing has me worried about you Michael. It’s centralized direction and distribution of resources. Sure it’s done through a f-ed up system created purely for the benefit of the few, but one thing Obama knows for sure is how to grease the palms of those who put him in power – with other peoples money.
Like a bannana republic dictator Obama and the congress have ignored the law and constitiution. Twisting the meaning of every word to whatever suits their mood. There are plenty of communists left, you only have to look at Obama’s advisors to find them.
Forcing us to buy health care products of their description is unconstitutional, forcing it to be done through a network of their friends is criminal, selling it as though it’s help for anyone is fraudulent. Yay, change we can believe in.
A stupid image, and completely wrong with regard to the IPCC.
However Jeff is right: “whomever released the climategate files was very familiar with the odd position this blog took in the pile, better than these internet pro’s”; and it was my believe that “FOIA” selected from the three options which had been uploaded simultaneously on the 13 November, the text: “ Open Letter On Climate Legislation “ with intention. This open letter was a reply to a letter written to the Senate by 18 different scientific organizations concerning climate change legislation, complaining that climate science uses a nonsensical terminology, and seems not to be able to define “climate” in a scientific reasonable manner. At least I wanted to believe that “FOIA” endorsed this complain, and expressed my gratitude in Comment 21: “TO: FOIA (# 10 & 19) You did it. You made many people very, very happy with your visit here and the given link. Luckily Jeff Id discovered it immediately: “This is the biggest news ever broken here. hunter said November 20, 2009 at 12:01 am , „Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. God bless you.“ (continues at: https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/open-letter/ )
It was really great from Jeff to publish the Open Letter in November, TAV wrote history that FOIA dropped the climategate-emails here, and hopefully FIOA endorsed the request that science has to say in academic terms what CLIMATE is, or not to use a layman’s term at all, as discussed in detail at: http://www.whatisclimate.com/ . Thanks Jeff!
I’m not sure what’s happening in America, but its neither socialist nor communist. It looks from here more like the capture of the government apparatus by the Financial Sector special interest group, which is going about imposing huge costs on the country in order to take a small fraction of those costs as rent for itself.
Think clearly about this. Socialism or Communism both are characterized by the state employing the people who do the work and make the goods or provide the services. This is something the US is running a mile from. Obama has not transformed one sixth of the economy into the state. To do that would involve running it all as nationalized industry. He is running a mile from that. What’s happening is the granting of powers and privileges to special interests. That is not socialism.
I don’t know what it is, but its not socialism. Banana republic, yes, maybe. A sort of oligarchy of interest groups. Basically right wing stuff.
#38, Again, your imagination of ‘right wing’ Obama is incorrect. The government will control what the insurers offer, they will control which medicines are used, what procedures can be implemented, who needs to pay what and when. There is nothing conservative or ‘right’ about it, except that a few private citizens are cut in for a percentage.
To achieve this marvelous destruction of the US a massive, massive bureaucracy will be implemented that determines what, when and how you will be cared for. Just because it’s disguised with a private middleman to collect some money doesn’t change the fact that it’s — extremist leftism.
Technically it is “collectivist,” but the distinction between various forms of collectivist schemes is largely immaterial: they all result in a lack of individual rights, and they all ultimately require ideal conditions in order to work (which implies a lack of free will). None of them understand the concept of demand (nor did Keynes) and likewise, they have no mechanism to deal with demand.
While we’re at it… we might as well have the government provide our food. I mean, a civilized society cannot exist unless its people are fed, right? The government might as well provide that, too, since clearly we cannot live without food. I want steak every night… tell me why I can’t then try to tell me this new system won’t ration health care.
Mark
#40, I like that argument, a civilized society cannot live without food, it might as well be government distributed also. After all, we know that government is rarely unfair.
40, 41-Careful, the idea of government providing food is hardly outside of the collectivist imagination. In fact, it dates to Roman times at least:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_supply_to_the_city_of_Rome
#42, they starved in Russia from a similar policy.
43-Yes indeed.
Yes, indeed, my point(s) exactly.
Rationing, btw, is the dirty little secret the cowards can’t openly admit. If it leaked out, it wouldn’t be 65%-70% of the voters dislike this affront, it would be more like 90%. Unfortunately, not enough people believe the analysts over at Fox, and they’re the only ones pointing it out. Sigh…
Mark
Thank you, thank you, Jeff, for your role in exposing the ‘Climategate’ story.
A lot of filth will be exposed if the ‘Climategate’ iceberg melts.
Climatologists learned the tricks for deception by manipulating and hiding experimental data and observations from those in charge of the flow of public funds for research grants: NAS, NASA, DOE, EPA, NOAA, etc.
The good news: ‘Climategate’ exposed the unholy international alliance of world leaders, news media, publishers and scientists that uses science as a propaganda tool to control people and to establish a totalitarian world government, like that described by George Orwell in “1984”.
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/
‘Climategate’ allowed me to understand why NAS, NASA and DOE have been deceiving the public for decades about the origin, composition and source of energy for planet Earth – the Sun. These agencies and their scientists are not stupid. They could not convince the public that CO2 controls Earth’s climate if they admitted how violently unstable Earth’s heat source really is!
See “Earth’s heat source- The Sun” [Energy and Environment 20 (2009) 131-144] http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0704
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Emeritus Professor
Nuclear & Space Studies
Former NASA PI for Apollo
The government will control what the insurers offer, they will control which medicines are used, what procedures can be implemented, who needs to pay what and when. There is nothing conservative or ‘right’ about it, except that a few private citizens are cut in for a percentage.
While we’re at it… we might as well have the government provide our food. I mean, a civilized society cannot exist unless its people are fed, right?
It is really quite important to distinguish between different political and social phenomena and not to call different things by the same name.
Jeff is right, that government control which, coincidentally or not, cuts in the finance sector for a percentage, is what is happening. But this is not the same as socialism. Why? The classic socialist organization is that the state operates, and does not simply fund and regulate. That has mostly happened historically because of an ideological commitment to state ownership. This is what led to the wave of nationalizations in Britain in the forties, and its what led the UK to adopt the NHS model of a nationalized industry when it introduced its universal health insurance.
If you like, there are three models and not two. One model is that the state neither funds nor operates, and leaves the results to happenstance, and extension of services to the poor to charity. At the limit, if you see someone ill and unable to afford medical treatment, its nothing to do with the state – call a charity, give help yourself, go home, whatever. This seems to be the model you all favor. This is true conservatism. Old fashioned 19c liberalism. I think its a lost cause, but still. In this model there would be no social security, no unemployment insurance, no medical cover other than what one bought, no state education, no municipal garbage collection. The accidents of life fall on the individual who takes whatever precautions he is able and willing to take.
There are two disadvantages to this approach which have led to its general disappearance as a serious political program. The first is that it does not deliver secure coverage of what have increasingly come to be seen as basic necessities – including health care and education. People have increasingly ceased to be prepared to rely on goodwill and charity to deliver them to the poor. This is partly down to a view that we all benefit from having a better educated and healthier population and routes out of poverty by education.
It is partly down to a realization that the only way to preserve individual freedom is by balances between those who would restrict it. If we do not want to have a situation in which the only school you can get to is a fundamentalist Islamic one run by the local mosque, the availability of the local secular state school is a contribution to your freedom. The state is not the only enemy of freedom. Other sources of power in society are too.
A second model is that the state funds and regulates but does not provide. This is compatible with liberal democracy as it has existed in the US and Europe post WWII. We can argue about what services should be covered, but all of our societies provide some welfare services in this way – unemployment insurance, major disaster relief, education, social security.
This model has different variants. In the European version, on health care, and in some countries on education, we are close to the first model, but with a guarantee that everyone will be able to afford a certain level of service. Voucher schemes for schools are in this category. You are funded, but choose your school. Universal insurance schemes fall here. You are funded for 85% of a hernia operation, Find the supplier of your choice and submit your claim.
This is not socialism. It is in some ways well to the right of current US and UK practice. It says, you do not fund what you do not use in public services. You do not have to pay for a given school system if you do not use its services. Similarly with hospitals. Whereas, in current practice in the UK and the US, you pay for public education, and then you pay again if you do not use it but go to private schools.
The US variant of this, as seen in the current health proposals, shows one of the key disadvantages of this model. If you restrict the suppliers on which the vouchers may be spent, by for example restricting interstate supply, then you can end up with an industry cartel, which will then behave rather like a nationalized industry. In effect the state will have granted a monopoly. The US does this with local phone and electricity services, but it also has a PUC to regulate by rate of return. This model does seem to work in these services. But in general, the power to grant a monopoly, if used to any great extent, will lead to capture of the state apparatus by an oligarchy of private special interests to the disadvantage of the community.
A third model is genuine socialism in the classic sense, in which the state operates, usually through nationalized industries. British Leyland, later Rover, was the state car manufacturer. As was Renault in France. The NHS was and is a nationalized health care HMO. The old PTTs were nationalized telecoms companies. The Gas and Electricity companies in the UK were nationalized industries. The great disadvantage of this, and what has led to the disappearance of the model from serious political programs, was the performance of the nationalized industries which was uniformly disastrous.
Part of the reason is that when the state goes into operations, it always grants itself a monopoly. Having a legal monopoly and also powerful trade unions is a hiding to disaster.
Where does this leave us? The situation is more nuanced and the policy choices and policy practices more varied than the cries of ‘communism’ and ‘neoconservatism’ suggest. All modern Western societies have similar basic goals, they want to ensure an educated and healthy population with basic levels of education and health care services regardless of income. How they go about it, and where they draw the line on what should be funded, what regulated, and what provided by the state, differs.
I think there is a good argument from current European practice (which is not uniform by the way) that state funding of education and health care, coupled with at least some private provision of the funded services, and some degree of regulation, offers the best chance of securing the best mix of individual freedom of choice, and individual freedom from want. The reason we do not take the same approach to food or clothes or transport is not that the approach is wrong. It is that food, clothes, transport, whatever, is not the kind of thing it will work to apply it to. The approach is fine, but it has its limits. Mowing the lawn is fine in principle, for lawns, but don’t try to mow tomatoes!
These things are always a mix. To give a UK example which is periodically in the news, do we want to secure the rights of all UK girls to education and choice of marriage partner? Or do we want to secure the rights of the community to bring up its children how they want? What do we do if the community uses its freedom to bring about forced marriages and female illiteracy? If we do not use the power of the state on their behalf, are we to leave them at the mercy of the mosque? If Microsoft chooses to ban access from Windows to climate sceptic sites, do we just say, fine, don’t buy it? Or do we feel that the power of the state should intervene and say that you cannot dictate what people read? And if its not the state that does it, who does? You can say, the market, but how long are you prepared to wait till it does it? If it ever does.
The US model is turning out to be a variant of the second model, but one which seems from here to be basically flawed, because it amounts to capture of the regulatory governmental apparatus by the finance sector, and it will probably have the usual deleterious effects of this: excessive prices, and insufficient freedom. However, you don’t increase understanding of these issues by fulminating about Hussein Obama and similar silly stuff. You need to get down to the specifics of the proposals.
Well, back to climate now!
Michel
Nice analysis. There is a role for the state, for example setting energy policy, setting out infrastruture aims, determining levels of basic pension.
It even has a role in supplying some of these, for example British trains are some of the most expensive in the world, as are buses, and it could be argued that a greater subsidy (provided it is applied efficently) would improve services, cut travel costs and encourage more people to leave cars behind-where that is a practical and best option. In that respect I wouldnt dream of driving to my nearest city-Exeter- as the weekend train is available for a good price and delivers me to the city centre. When I take my son back to Cambridge Uni in a few weeks time however its a no brainer to use my car. Horses for courses.
The state does have a habit however of meddling, being inefficient and imposing a top down solution, so it clearly needs to be constrained.
tonyb
Just to add one other thing. At the end of the nationalized industry road, if you go down the authoritarian route, you end up with E Germany or the Soviet Union. This is where the individual is totally dependent on the state for everything.
If you go down the route of state fund and private choice, you end up with the minimum infringement of freedom and the max of competition of providers.
If you go down the route of mandatory purchase under state regulated conditions from private suppliers, the stopping point of authoritarian routes is state capitalism, on the lines of Franco’s Spain or Nazi Germany (though not necessarily with its genoicidal elements). In this model, like in the first model, connections and influence are all, but they are applied and work quite differently.
I have personally experience the US, European and UK models of health care, which few of your readers have. There is no doubt which you would choose, if you were making an informed choice based on experience, it would be the Euro one.
michel said
March 24, 2010 at 4:40 am
Only until you had to experience rationing, or a very serious illness, then you would choose the US one.
Your experience, while certainly unique, is still only anecdotal. The fact that you are so authoritative without being capable of understanding this distinction… says a lot about you.
Mark
“Only until you had to experience rationing”
You experience rationing in the UK. This is the worst aspect of the UK system. It transfers financial risk onto the last person presenting after the budget runs out. You do not experience rationing in Europe. If too many people present with athletes foot, they go over budget. Financial risk is borne by the state.
This is the whole point of the system, and what makes it importantly different from the UK one.
I did experience very serious illness. That is why I am authoritative about it.
Dear all,
I’ve done an imagemap that makes the image clickable. Please feel free to copy the HTML code at
http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2010/03/quem-e-quem.html
Ecotretas
Skipping straight from Andrew 5.
I usually don’t notice that I can click on a name to see what’s going on with someone. So thanks for the heads up, I like it and will go back FWIW (not a VIP, just an amateur skeptic groupie).
Hey, they left Cheifio off of the map. (Usually the first off-site I click after sniffing the air vent.)
I know there’s a message, (i.e., dog not barking?), but not sure what it is.
I wouldn’t have found him without your link, Jeff.
Here’s hoping your physical locale has fallen off of ‘their’ collective radar screen.
RR
Heh. Michel’s posts remind of the old Soviet anecdote:
Communism, Socialism and Capitalism agree to have dinner together. So, Socialism goes out to get the fixings.
When he finally comes back he explains, “I’m sorry it took me so long, but I had to wait in a queue for two hours to buy some sausage.”
Capitalism, looking perplexed, asks, “Socialism, what is a queue?”
Communism, looking even more perplexed, asks, “Socialism what is sausage?”
Based on this anecdote, the U.S. has had socialism in medical care for quite some time now.
Of course we have, Philemon, though at least we have been legally allowed to avoid the direct insurance cost. Surprise to many, btw, is that medical costs are actually lower if you a) pay for them out of pocket and b) shop around before you buy. Significantly cheaper, I might add. Note that this truth does not hold if you are “shopping around” under a high deductible insurance program – you’ll still pay what the insurance company “negotiated” for you, which is the same deal the insurance company gets for itself.
Mark
Michel,
One thing you have forgotten in your thesis is the role of research and innovation. Please inform me of any medical breakthough’s originating out of the UK or the European health systems in the last 60 years?
The only exception to this is Pharma. But the European Pharma industry is very quickly disappearing.
#57, That’s right. Much of the rest of the world seems to like to forget where the technologies we enjoy came from. They like to imagine that it was just luck and even celebrate when the US has trouble. Not every technology came from the US but far too much to ignore did. Were we the smartest 200 million people, no chance. Did we just get lucky over and over and over.. No dammit!!
Free people, free to consume, to grow, to work or not work, unmolested by massive laws, unreasonable lawyers, banking thieves, free to learn from proper schools, free to be fired for a bad job done, personal responsibility, that’s what makes America work.
Year after year, we have stepped away from what made it work. It’s slowly rotted away the core of what gave us our success. Help he poor, protect the worker, redistribute the wealth, very simple wonderful sounding messages which have been proven time and again to not work! It does not help the poor to give them a steady check, it enslaves them, it does not protect the worker to prevent them from being fired, it destroys the business, it does not improve racism to provide advantages to one group, it incites more. These tired old policies are not working for us either, and all you have to do is travel through Detroit one time to see it.
America has to go back to what made it great, I don’t believe it will though. Too many people from other countries who don’t flinch when we talk about government taking over health care or increased “services”. You can tell from the comments that Europe has been brainwashed by their government and media to the point where they actually believe we leave people starving in the streets. They too often believe it’s luck/resources/WWII that made America do what it did. It’s equivalent to denying the holocost in my opinion, on a massive scale. It’s become socially unpopular to recognize that what happened here is actually a good thing when it was so much more than people realize. I’m getting too depressed for a Saturday morning.
Jeff, there are almost no communists any more.
Of course not. They call themselves social democrats, or progressives, or liberals, or centerists or some innocuous name to occlude which branch of the socialist tree they are on. Right now in America the corporatist branch of socialism is in power. What used to fondly be referred to as fascists.
Fascism with the murdering is the end of every socialist system. Because you eventually run out of other peoples money.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2009/05/paying-for-social-security.html
Hayek wrote about it in 1944 when it was still fresh in every ones mind.
The road to serfdom.