The state senate of California has just passed a bill to enact single-payer, fully socialized medical care, in California. How is it financial lunacy? They passed the bill but have no idea as to how they will pay for it. Not a clue.

California had a total tax revenue of $112.3 billion in 2012, the latest year for which I could find this information in a short search. I have heard, but could not verify that California's tax revenue for 2016 was $200 billion. The estimated cost for their health care bill, according to the bill's sponsor, is, get this, $400 billion a year. That is more than all their yearly tax revenues combined. Far more.

This is what comes from following John Maynard Keynes thinking as he is the proponent of spend your way to wealth. Do not save. Spend, spend, spend, and when you cannot keep spending because you are bankrupt, keep on spending. It was his idea that governments can spend forever with zero consequences.

When, not if, California now begins defaulting on its debts it will be a far larger financial earthquake than when Greece defaulted as California has a GDP larger than many countries.

The Marxist democrats are determined, one way or the other, to destroy the US. No doubt about it when they do this kind of idiocy.

If it works as James described --
people pay their medical premium cost which spreads the cost of medical care over a large base, thus no one has to pay big bucks when they need medical attention -- then it is good. That's basically how it is "supposed" to work.

Now the next question --
will it work as it is "supposed" to work?


Canada has had a medical care system for as long as I can remember -- in many ways it is a blessing, but there are major problems with the system.
We lose a lot of our best doctors to the US, because they can make more money there. There is a "lid" on how much they can charge here.

Another problem is there are often long waiting lists -----
months can go by before treatment is received.

Not sure how the California bill works --
A "single payer" -- does that mean the competitive insurance guys get weeded out and the government takes control of all the medical insurance issues?

That seems to be the case as the news reports the legislature "certainly faces major opposition from private businesses—the largest providers of health care in the country and recipients of massive health care benefit-related tax exclusions"

There seems to be concern that tax payers (not premium payers) will foot a lot of the bills)

Yet the biggest problem with "single payer" healthcare is that it eliminates the "competition" -- there are no more checks and counter checks thus allowing the "single payer" to wield considerable control.


I agree that healthful living is one of the best "insurance policies" against needing medical care -- But many don't practice that, and even many that do can still end up with medical problems, especially as they age.

If it works as James described --
people pay their medical premium cost which spreads the cost of medical care over a large base, thus no one has to pay big bucks when they need medical attention -- then it is good. That's basically how it is "supposed" to work.

Now that was funny, James. You tickled my funny bone.

California is going to have to raise all of their tax rates at least 200% just to pay for this. The Democrat's own estimate of cost per year is $400 billion dollars, and politicians are always underestimating costs so that their projects will look better than they actually are. That is more than twice their current total tax receipts for a year, and the state is already spending more than it gets in taxes before they added this cost to their list of spending.

By your answer I assume that if your income is $50000 a year you feel you would have no problem with spending in excess of $150000 a year and think you could stay solvent financially doing it.

What I'm really curious about is what is going to be the motivation that will cause 10s of millions of people to suddenly change the eating and health practices of their entire lifetimes just so that none of them will ever get sick. All Californians will now no longer eat meat. They will never eat junk food or sweets. They will all now exercise regularly, and all of this just because they now will think they don't have to pay for their own health care. It hasn't worked that way anywhere else in the world, so what makes Californians so different that they will now all become super healthy?

I guess what your argument really is boils down to the idea that once socialism is the law of the land everything will turn completely rosy, nothing will ever go wrong, nobody will ever get sick, and bills will just magically get paid. It's what Friedrich Hayek calls the politics of "hope". He says the socialists hope socialism works. They hope everything will be rosy. They hope all the laws of economics will somehow be suspended. They hope money will just grow on trees, so all they have to do is stroll around and collect it.

• Funny bones aside, you must surely be wearing a scowling face and speak with gnashing teeth as you pay your car and fire insurances.
   
• Your anger must know no bounds as you stroll through the supermarket lanes and observe how cheap and easy food has become compared to if you had to grow it yourself.
   
• Why, you must be downright self-righteously blowing the top should you see a poor beggar who has fallen victim to a heart attack, be taken in the best ambulance to the best hospital to be fitted with the best pacemaker FOR FREE! In fact, you would cause a riot and demand that the poor man pay IN FULL, won't you?
  
  --- Mat. 18:23-35

///

More financial consequences for the poor man. Let's say his car breaks down or he gets in a wreck and has to buy another one. The guy who earns $20K a year might buy a $10000 car so he can have something that is going to be at least reasonably reliable and efficient. So, lets look at the costs associated with that $10K car. His costs right now are $750 in sales tax. $24 in CHP fees. $46 in registration fees. And his vehicle license will cost him $65. That's a total of $835 in addition to his purchase price. Under the new taxation scheme he will pay $2250 in sales tax. He will pay $72 in CHP fees. He will pay $138 in registration fees. And he will now pay $195 in vehicle licensing fees for a total additional cost of $2655. That means his costs just increased by $1820. Where is he supposed to come up with that from? To say that won't happen is ridiculous for the poor man drives older cars that have to be replaced more often because of major mechanical failures, and his costs for replacement have gone up almost 11%. Real easy on the poor man, isn't it? I don't see how much more "help" he can afford to be given. All this "help" is driving him even deeper into poverty.

LOL. James, I am a poor man. I'm just not a stupid poor man, nor a poor man who thinks money grows on trees or just magically appears.

Let's look at reality here for California residents. For a married couple making $55,000 a year their total tax burden in California right now is 26% of their gross income. The following link shows this quite clearly. https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#qn2oUQ59GL Now, if you look at this you will see how the numbers work. What will happen to those numbers is that the State income tax number will triple from $1865 to $5595. The sales tax will triple from $1413 to $4239. Their fuel taxes will triple from $414 to $1242. Their property taxes will triple from $1983 to $5949. That means their total tax burden will go from $14647/year to $25999/yr. That is 46.7% of their gross income. How many people do you know that make $55,000 a year can absorb an increase in costs of more than $11,000/yr without causing them immense financial hardships? It will force almost everyone I know of who makes that type of income into bankruptcy in a very short time as this is an increase in spending of approximately $1000/month. The money a couple like this will have to live on will go from $44,849/yr to $29,687/yr. Now, when you add to that the increase in prices of almost everything they need to live because of the great increase in business taxes, that must be passed on to the consumer or the business goes out of business pretty rapidly, what do you think the result will be for a couple like that who was once fairly comfortable financially? In a state like California that already has a very high cost of living index this is going to push many people into bankruptcy who weren't even close to being bankrupt before.

If they own a small business their tax burden will be twice that as California taxes many small businesses twice. The business gets taxed like that and then the owner pays taxes on that same income. California hits them with double taxation because they have the skills and ambition to work for themselves. Really fair? Right?

And if you think the poor are somehow going to not have to pay for this too you are vastly mistaken. The price of everything they have to buy to survive is going to rise. And the cost of the sales taxes on everything they buy is going to triple. Instead of the tax being $7.50 per every $100 spent the tax is going to be $22.50 for every $100 spent. That means a poor man who makes $20000 a year and spends $8000 on taxable items is now going to have to pay $1800/year in sales tax rather than $600/yr. Where is he supposed to come up with the extra $1200/yr? That is the equivalent of a net 6% increase in his cost of living, and that doesn't even take into account his extra costs in fuel taxes, income taxes, and and rent increases required to pay for the increase in property taxes, nor does it account for the necessary rise in prices that comes from tripling the taxes on businesses. The poverty stricken individual is going to suffer far more than anyone else due to this law.

Stop lying to the people. Health insurance is not a hidden tax.

///

A single-payer system generally works like this: Instead of buying health insurance and paying for premiums, residents pay higher taxes. And those taxes are then used to fund the insurance plan — in the same way Medicare taxes are used to provide insurance for Americans 65 and over.

A longshot California proposal to replace insurance companies with government-funded health care for all of the state's residents could be paid for with a sales tax hike and a new tax on business revenue, according to a report released Wednesday.

The report said those taxes would generate $106 billion annually. It was made public by the influential California Nurses Association as the state Senate faces a Friday deadline to vote on the bill, which outlines how a single-payer health care system would function but does not say how it would be funded.

Stop lying to the people. Health insurance is not a hidden tax.

///

The state senate of California has just passed a bill to enact single-payer, fully socialized medical care, in California. How is it financial lunacy? They passed the bill but have no idea as to how they will pay for it. Not a clue.

California had a total tax revenue of $112.3 billion in 2012, the latest year for which I could find this information in a short search. I have heard, but could not verify that California's tax revenue for 2016 was $200 billion. The estimated cost for their health care bill, according to the bill's sponsor, is, get this, $400 billion a year. That is more than all their yearly tax revenues combined. Far more.

This is what comes from following John Maynard Keynes thinking as he is the proponent of spend your way to wealth. Do not save. Spend, spend, spend, and when you cannot keep spending because you are bankrupt, keep on spending. It was his idea that governments can spend forever with zero consequences.

When, not if, California now begins defaulting on its debts it will be a far larger financial earthquake than when Greece defaulted as California has a GDP larger than many countries.

The Marxist democrats are determined, one way or the other, to destroy the US. No doubt about it when they do this kind of idiocy.

dedication,

Your quote from mercury news talks about similarities to other government programs. Include in that list things like workman's compensation programs that are government funded. The government is acting as the insurance agent for injured workers. The problem with it here in the US is that it is one incredibly cold blooded organization. To keep its costs down it cuts off many injured people and denies claims to many more who should be covered.

I had a next-door neighbor who severely injured his back and lived on pain meds after several unsuccessful surgeries left him in a constant state of great pain. Workman's comp started cutting him off from medical care after 4 years. They would not authorize his pain meds nor any further treatment even though they knew from his doctors that he was in major pain and needed further medical care. They have their own version of "death panels" where non-medically trained government bureaucrats say what they will and will not pay for no matter what the medical condition of person they are supposed to be helping.

I agree Keynes didn't have it all figured out. But, managed capitalism is still the best economy. It is amazing how small concern credit, or debt, is given among so many economist and politicians.

So, what do you propose Gary K?

I have wondered about the way flood insurance is provided for in the USA. The government pays all the benefits and the insurance companies are limited to 15% profits without any risk. Could this work for health care?

And should he fall sick?

///

So then, what of the California healthcare initiative? All Californians have to do instead of sitting in front of their computer, furiously commenting and growing fat, is to take a stroll through the lovely public parks, exercise a bit, chat with friends and eat healthy foods. Before long, the health insurance bill will fall to a million dollars just in case someone turns up at an empty hospital for a band-aid or two.

///

Do you remember the gas lines and gas shortages of the 1970's? You may not as you are a Canadian. I don't know of you guys had them up there. All of that in the US was caused by Richard Nixon imposing price controls and production controls on the petroleum industry. Then he made it worse by saying gas stations had to stay open whether they had gas available to sell or not. This imposed big time hardships on gas station owners as they had to pay their employees whether they had any product to sell or not. Meaning that they had ongoing labor costs even when they had zero sales. Gas stations only make a few pennies per gallon profit. The rest of the money goes to the state, federal government and the oil companies. So, when they had to pay their employees to sit on their behinds because there was nothing to sell it ran a bunch of them out of business.

The entire shortage of those days was only 4%. Meaning of course, that 96% of the gasoline normally available was still there. If Nixon had let well enough alone the prices would have gone up some, and people who were driving just to be driving would have curtailed their driving just because of the cost. Instead he imposed price restrictions--profit restrictions if you will--and the rest of the people who had to have gas to get back and forth to work, or needed their vehicles for work itself, would have had enough gas use and the lines would not have existed. And the rise in profits would have caused the oil companies to increase production enough to meet the demand. Then the price would have gone back down to normal and the whole thing would have been over and no real big disruption would have occurred. None of that could happen however because Nixon imposed controls on prices and production. His actions created, worsened, and prolonged the situation. This is what always happens when wage and price controls are put in place, and what you are proposing is nothing more than price controls.

If you like I can give many more examples of how artificial shortages have come about in countries across the world by the governments in those countries interfering with the laws of supply and demand. The reason most people don't see the relationship between government rules and regulations and economic problems is that they don't understand economics, and that allows politicians a free hand to do whatever they like and their constituents not realizing just how much harm they are doing while all the time the politicians are patting themselves on the back and saying, see, look at what we are doing for you. We are helping you out of this problem.

If we go back to the great depression of the 1930's the economic machinations of FDR caused that depression to last years longer than it should have. There was a very similar market crash during the administration Warren G. Harding. He, however, did nothing. He didn't interfere with the economy in any way, and no one ever talks about that event because he didn't. Because he didn't the market took care of the problem in no time at all and there was no real depression. Everyone talks about the market crash of 1929 and the great depression because FDR thought he was far smarter than the market and the more he interfered with the economy the worse the depression became, and the longer it lasted. He was the cause of an unbelievable amount of poverty and the length of the depression. Under Harding the market rebounded in a few months and the money supply took care of itself. Under FDR none of that happened because he didn't allow it to happen. It is a great economic lesson for today but you rarely hear about it because it is very politically unpopular to talk about it. The politicians hate the example because it shows how little they understand the cause and effect relationships of economics because almost all them have been indoctrinated into the school of Keynesian economics. Plus the socialists in this country have so deified FDR that it is just plain old heresy to say he did anything wrong. But, if he was so great, why did the country call a constitutional convention after his death and make it against the law for any president to serve more than 2 terms in office? It tells me that people realized back then just how much harm he did in his four terms in office and wanted to limit the harm to the country by any one man and his ideas.

Regulation is the bane of economic prosperity. It drains money out the economy without the average person being able to see it. This is why Trump is rolling back government regulation of business right and left. In doing so he is injecting life back into the economy.

Just before before Obama left office he put a massive amount of regulations in place. The cost of those regulations is in the trillions of dollars per year in what they drain out of the economy. They cause poverty. Almost everyone knows how slowly and how little the US has come back from the crash of 2008. The reason is because Obama put in place 20 or 30 times as many regulations as FDR did, and FDR was the major cause of the Great Depression. What Obama did to hide the effects of what he has done was to monetize out debt. His "quantitative easing"(qe) was nothing more than printing money out of thin air and then pushing it into the stock market to artificially increase stock prices because that is what the average person and politician looks at. He pushed $80 billion a month into the stock market through his qe over the term of his presidency. Almost all by itself it is the cause of a lot of issues.

There is a lot of hidden inflation in the US. In the food industry the manufacturers have kept their prices the same but decreased the size of the containers. Cottage cheese used to come in quart containers: 32 ounces. Now it comes in 24 oz containers. That's an increase of 25% in price. Potato chips used to come in 2 lb bags. Now they come in 1 lb or smaller bags. That's an increase of 50% in price. I can give you many more examples but that illustrates the issues involved. What the government does in figuring their inflation numbers ignores the fact that the amounts sold per container are smaller and chooses only to look at the price. Thus the government says, look at how little inflation there is, when the reality is far, far different.

Getting back to Trump you see the socialists screaming about how much harm he is doing. But that is all a smoke screen. He is doing right by the country so far. He isn't perfect by far, but he is doing far more for it than any President that we have had in many a decade. But the left is screaming because he is reducing their power by reducing spending and regulation. They absolutely hate him for it and the news media that is no longer unbiased, but the propaganda arm of the Democrats, is screaming right along with them. That said, I didn't vote for Trump. I didn't trust him as he has for decades been a Democrat. But I have to give him credit for keeping his campaign promises and starting to drain the swamp of all the corruption at the highest levels of government. All the media hysteria you see is the entrenched forces of corruption fighting him on it.

Gary K, you are a classic Austrian. And that's ok. I am one who believes a lot of these shortages are forced on the people from the globalists trying to convince the population supply and demand works as they say it does.

I guess you think supply and demand will cause inflation if there is too much cash in an economy?

It is true the depression of 1920-21 was short because nothing was done. I don't believe it had anything to do with any market pressures.

IMHO

Blessings Gary K,

Managed capitalism is just that! You let the markets run their course until they start to fail. At this time the government steps in to right the economy to prevent recessions and depressions.

Keynes had the right basic idea, but, for some reason never thought to address the credit side, or debt side of the equation.

You bet I subscribe to the Austrian economic theories of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. They make sense. When they explain things, they explain them in common sense terms and show why what they believe is true. There are other non-Austrian economists who agree with them that do not claim to be from the Austrian school of thought. I've read on this subject extensively and the Austrian school of thought makes more sense than any of the others.

You really ought to read the book on Keynes about who he was. It is documented using his own words as to his behavior and beliefs. It is titled, Keynes: The Man, and is a free download from Mises.org. It will shake your belief in his writings pretty soundly as it shows just how devious and self-serving the man was. And studying the writings of Hayek and von Mises will show just how wrong Keynes was on everything. Neither Hayek nor von Mises were Christians, but in some of Hayek's writings can be seen Biblical principle after Biblical principle.

"General Theory" is really nothing more than a complete scam as Keynes pulled numbers out of thin air, used very flawed mathematics, and many of his ideas are nothing more than ideas such as mercantilism, which had already been refuted in his day, repackaged in greatly obfuscated language. He claimed he refuted Say's law but all he really refuted was a straw man he created that masqueraded as Say's law, and it is really easy to defeat straw men you yourself create.

Keynes wasn't actually an economist either. He only took one class on economics in his entire life. He was just like me in his economic education: self-taught.

I'd like to see your evidence that globalist interference in the market is done to falsely show that the market when left alone works. Start another thread if you'd like. I think this would be an interesting discussion as I believe just the opposite--they interfere for a couple of reasons but not the one you believe to be true--and can show it in real life case after case.

I have another question or two for you too. They may sound pretty odd coming from nowhere, but just humor me for now as the reasons for them will become apparent.

Who knows more about your financial needs, your likes and dislikes of the products available to you, and what you can afford to pay for those products? You, or someone who doesn't know you and has no knowledge of your individual financial situation?

Do I think supply and demand will cause inflation through an artificial insertion of currency into the system? No. I think the artificial insertion of excess currency causes the inflation. The more currency you have floating around that is not tied to actual production devalues the currency. Let's look at this in round numbers so that it is easy to see.

Let's say you have 10 lb's of gold. You also have 100,000 dollar bills whose value is based upon that 10 lbs of gold. That means each of those dollar bills is valued at .0001 lbs of gold. Now let's say you print off another 100,000 dollar bills. Now how much is each of those 200,000 dollar bills worth? They are now worth .00005 lbs of gold. That means the value of your currency was just now cut in half. That is inflation. Where did the inflation come from? The insertion of currency not based upon any real property of value.

Now let's turn this example completely around. You have 10 lbs of gold and the 100,000 dollar bills. What you do instead of printing more money is go and dig out another 10 lbs of gold. In other words, you increase your production. Now how much is the value of each of those dollars? The are worth twice what they were worth originally, .0002 lbs of gold. That means the purchasing power of those dollars just doubled. Anyone depending on them to buy and sell is now wealthier, where anyone who was depending of the 200,000 dollars valued on the 10 lbs of gold was poorer than before you printed out the new currency. To hold equal value they had to hold twice the number of dollars.

That is inflation based upon insertion of currency into an economic system without a corresponding increase in production in that same economy.

So then, production is the same as gold to you? Gold is in pretty short supply in the world and who decides what the value of that gold is? If we are going to use nominal GDP instead of gold, then that changes a lot of ideas of Mises and Hayek.

Also, what Biblical principles do you see in Hayek's ideas?

As far as managed capitalism is concerned, it has been used successfully in the world already! So, it is very real.

The fact that an economy is complex does mean that it somehow violates the laws that govern it. By that I mean the natural laws such as the relationship between the supply of money and the amount of wealth produced at any specific time.

When the USA left the gold standard they began to print money to get out of recession, and it seemed to work. But everyone realized there had to be some kind of bases to build on.

So the USA set out to make the US dollar the world economic standard. (I'm not an economist so just sharing how I understand this)

How did they do this.
They turned to oil.
Kissinger, back in the 1970's, went over to Saudi Arabia and made a deal with the Arabs. The Saudi's would sell their oil ONLY in US dollars and bank their surplus in US dollars, in return the US would buy Saudi's oil and provide them with military aid and equipment. The Arabs agreed.

By 1975 more oil producing countries joined the system, all of the OPEC nations agreed to price their oil in US dollars and to hold their surplus oil proceeds in US government debt securities.

Because oil is in such constant demand, this placed the US dollar above all other currency.
And since other nations need lots of US dollars to keep up their oil trade, the US can print as much money as they like and the countries will honor it as valuable.

However, should the US loose this position as the world reserve currency ......
And there has been considerable talk of other nations like China seeking to overturn the US dollar's world supremacy and make their money, the yen, the world standard, then the US would be in gigantic economic trouble.

I think you missed the point of my post -- for it was showing that the dollar is based on something --
....oil....!

The USA has considerable control over the economy of the whole world thanks to it's agreement concerning oil.

What was the whole "oil war" about a couple years ago when the USA flooded the oil market with it's oil and drove prices of oil so low it pretty much completely shut down oil production in Canada and left tens of thousands of Canadians job-less in one province alone.


Of course it was aimed at controlling Saudi Arabia, putting them into a deficit and bringing them back under US control, thus ensuring the power of the US dollar.
But it sure struck an awful blow at Canada as well.

Crude oil is (or was) Canada's most exported product to its southern neighbor, as well as to Japan and other countries.


But since the oil war, the Canadian dollar has dropped so low it's alarming. It used to be almost at par with the US dollar, now it's worth only about 65 cents. Prices of all necessities have jumped up but wages haven't. It's particular hard on people with fixed income. Talk about inflation rising prices and lowered income!!!!

When quoting former posts, please try and quote only what you are addressing, not quotes in quotes in quotes. Thanks!

dedication,

I just thought of what is probably a better way to explain this.

It will be like the gold example I used in which the number of dollars was doubled and thus reduced the value of each dollar by 50%. Except that in this case it will be more like printing up 10,000,000 more dollars without any more gold to back the currency.

The use of the US dollar as the reserve currency means nothing more than it is the medium whereby country A and country B exchange money for oil between each other. One country gets the goods produced by the other country and the country that sells the goods agrees that the bill will be paid in US dollars. That has nothing to do with the economic activity in the US. It just gives the US a strong political influence.

The US Dollar isn't called the petro-dollar for nothing!

Just speaking for myself here. We have people that still put a lot more trust in what those who believe themselves to be economic teachers say and think. Such as the Federal Reserve Chairperson.

I don't!!!

In 2008-09 I finally learned my lesson and stopped listening to the economic pundits. Even then Chair of the US Fed Alan Greenspan admitted he would have to re-think the economy.

I already knew that by that time of the US investigation into the 2008-09 crash.

I have spent time since then in Keynes, Hayek, Social Credit, Islamic, Modern Monetary Theory and a couple of others. I don't subscribe to any of them, although, I do take bits and pieces from most of them anyway.

There is one person though that God has used to give me much focus in economic matters and his name is Professor Richard Werner from Southhampton College. He has a documentary called "Princes of the Yen" that really honed my understanding about both money and debt. He is the guy that first coined the term "quantitative easing". And it isn't what you are led to think it is by today's economic pundits.

In the first 7-8 minutes of his doc "Princes of the Yen", we learn what real quantitative easing really is.

We need to changes the structure and function of our economy and we can. We will see what God allows.

Actually, I fully agree that the debt based method of running an economy is ruinous to the nation. What you are saying is the way we wish things were.

Obviously banks should not be giving out huge mortgages with next to no down payments that will absolutely bankrupt them if a number of their clients can't pay their monthly payments.

And true, should America loose it's position as having the standard reserve currency, the value of the US dollar would drop like a lead balloon.

The economy is very complex and globally intertwined now and in many ways it violates the laws of a healthy state of economic living.

Yet the idea that economic activity is based only internally within a country is no longer true. The export/import activity does affect the economic activity within the country.
I mean-- here in Canada our economy took a real plunge because of external happenings, and those external happenings have affected a lot of people in Canada in very personal ways. Over 60,000 people in one province lost their jobs within six months because of the oil war taking place in other nations.

So yes, making a few changes to affect the betterment of the local commerce is always a good thing, but I'm not sure there is any possibility of going back on this practice of the USA printing money "out of thin air". They have to do it to maintain their position in the world economy.

Not only must they print money, they have to assert their authority on the oil market to keep their dollars position as the world standard or reserve currency.
That I believe, is why the USA did the "oil war" two years ago. It bolstered the US dollar again.
It put down other nations currency in relationship to the US dollar.


Somehow I don't think the USA will ever give up their position as having the world reserve currency.
Prophecy in Rev. 13 shows the USA in economic power over the whole world. They have enough economic power so no one can buy or sell unless they have the "mark of the beast".

The position of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency is what gives the US this kind of power over the world's economy.
And the "elite", secret societies, behind the scenes manipulators will see to it, that this remains the case. (not for the well being of American people, they aren't concerned about that, but for their agenda to control).

If you really understood Hayek and Mises you would understand that they stood 100% against what is going on in today's economies. If their ideas had been followed world wide the economies of the entire world would be stable, poverty would be far less than it is today, and things like unemployment and inflation would not be the problems they are today. It isn't that they might not exist at all, but that they would be reduced considerably for it is impossible to get rid of all unemployment. Not all people want to work, and there are always winners and losers in a free market thus while come companies prosper others fail, and those failures lead to loss of jobs. Thus there will always be some unemployment.

Did you know that the only national economy ever set up by God was an economy based upon capitalism and no government intervention in the economy? It's true. Look at the economic structure God set up in ancient Israel. Now, all capitalism really means is the private ownership of land, natural resources, means of production, etc.... Now look at the laws of ancient Israel and you will find no laws governing how business was to be done other than those laws which limit greed and the harming of people through that greed. That means ancient Israel had a lassez faire capitalistic economy. The only "taxes" that God established were to support the priesthood and the poor. The Bible calls them tithes. There were no other forms of taxation. Those didn't come along until the Israelites rejected God as their king and asked for a king like the nations around them had. God warned them what would come of it but they refused to listen and insisted on their own way.

In addition to my statements on Israel's economy remember what God told them about what would happen if they followed His way of doing things. He told them they would be fabulously wealthy, that the rest of the world would be astonished at them.

Now why would they become wealthy beyond the rest of the world's imagination? The rest of the world used a centralized government structure that interfered with their businessmen. In other words the businesses were regulated according to what enriched the kings. Thus the governments were draining the wealth out of those societies.

God's laws, and ways of doing things, are always based upon what works. Why health laws? Because following them makes us healthier. Why His way of setting up an economy? Because if followed to the letter it produces more wealth for the people and reduces poverty. All God ever said about "special" economic blessings that He would provide was that He would send the rain for their crops. That alone would not have made the COI wealthy. Much of the "secret" to the wealth would have been the very economic system God set up.

If you understood free markets and no control over money and its allocation, you would see that Mises and Hayek's ideas have limited effectiveness. Until we completely separate cash from credit, it is impossible for any type of economy to work or turn around the economy.

Austrian is good in many cases, but, by itself it can't really get the job done.

To advocate really clear-cut principles of social order is today an almost certain way to incur the stigma of being an unpractical doctrinaire. It has come to be regarded as the sign of the judicious mind that in social matters one does not adhere to fixed principles but decides each question ”on its merits”; that one is generally guided by expediency and is ready to compromise between opposed views. Principles, however, have a way of asserting themselves even if they are not explicitly recognized but are only implied in particular decisions, or if they are present only as vague ideas of what is or is not being done. Thus it has come about that under the sign of ”neither individualism nor socialism” we are in fact rapidly moving from a society of free individuals toward one of a completely collectivist character.

If you really understood Hayek and Mises you would understand that they stood 100% against what is going on in today's economies. If their ideas had been followed world wide the economies of the entire world would be stable, poverty would be far less than it is today, and things like unemployment and inflation would not be the problems they are today. It isn't that they might not exist at all, but that they would be reduced considerably for it is impossible to get rid of all unemployment. Not all people want to work, and there are always winners and losers in a free market thus while come companies prosper others fail, and those failures lead to loss of jobs. Thus there will always be some unemployment.

Did you know that the only national economy ever set up by God was an economy based upon capitalism and no government intervention in the economy? It's true. Look at the economic structure God set up in ancient Israel. Now, all capitalism really means is the private ownership of land, natural resources, means of production, etc.... Now look at the laws of ancient Israel and you will find no laws governing how business was to be done other than those laws which limit greed and the harming of people through that greed. That means ancient Israel had a lassez faire capitalistic economy. The only "taxes" that God established were to support the priesthood and the poor. The Bible calls them tithes. There were no other forms of taxation. Those didn't come along until the Israelites rejected God as their king and asked for a king like the nations around them had. God warned them what would come of it but they refused to listen and insisted on their own way.

•And he said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.

•Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!

•And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.

•Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

--- Luke 12:22-34

...And how much of all this financial crisis is just a bunch of man-made regulations that have no basis in nature?!? I think much of it is.

That it was caused by government manipulations and mismanagement and regulations is true. However, the crises is real-- and just changing the regulations now will not get rid of the crises. What was sown to the wind will be reaped by a whirl wind.

Those are excellent Bible verses, and ones we need to remember.

If you look at what was underscored in red, that we ought not to "seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things," it goes right against the heart of the American independent, individualistic, consumerist, capitalist society.

What Jesus is advocating is more of the Scandinavian and Singaporean socialist model where people do not worry about what would happen to them should they fall ill, and recently in Finland, should they become unemployed.

The same idea is encapsulated in Mal. 3:10:

• Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
  That there may be food in My house,
  
  And try Me now in this,
  Says the Lord of hosts,
  If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
  And pour out for you such blessing
  That there will not be room enough to receive it.

In other words, most of the money you earn you voluntarily return in taxes, tithes, offerings, charitable donations, and helping hands; so that no one is rich beyond measure, yet everyone is wealthy beyond all imagination. There are excellent schools, beautiful public parks, architectural wonders, quick and courteous services -- all the things that make for a healthy and prosperous society.

"Freely you receive, freely give."

Again, you are lying to the people! China has a centralized system of government and today is on course to become the largest economy in the world. Be careful of dragging God's name down into the pit of the "prosperity gospel".

God does NOT run an economy. We are taught to pray, "OUR FATHER who is in heaven ..." In Him, we move and have our being: and all that He has created has been given to us freely as an inheritance for which we neither work nor toil, but only discover and manage.

• And he said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
   
• Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!
   
• And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
   
• Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
  
  --- Luke 12:22-34

See what is underlined in red? But you have become enraptured by Trumpian Economics and have set yourself up as the President's Evangelist among Christians deceptively endeavouring to secure their support as the Serpent in the Garden. It is a despicable work you do.

///

While assisting the truly poor is taught in scripture, the scriptures do NOT support giving handouts to encourage idleness or laziness. They do not really support a "socialist" type of government.

Would it not be useful to ask ourselves the question whether we are forgetting the true meaning of "charity" in the constant endeavour to take advantage of organized benevolent institutions, about the actual working of which we concern ourselves very little? As the years go on, and what we call civilisation advances, are we or are we not losing sight of "our neighbour" in a long vista of vicarious benefactions, bestowed through the medium of a subscription list, or casual contributions at an "anniversary festival?"

At the speeches that are made on such occasions, when the banquet is over, and the reading of the amounts subscribed is accompanied by the cracking of nuts and a crescendo or decrescendo of applause, in proportion to the liberality of the donors, we are so frequently reminded of "the good Samaritan," that we begin to feel that we may claim some kind of relationship to him; and may shake our heads with solemn sorrow at the inexcusable conduct of the priest and the Levite. It would be worth while, however, to ask ourselves whether we quite come up to the mark of him who, finding the man wounded and helpless by the wayside, dismounted that he might convey the sufferer to the nearest inn; poured out oil for his wounds and wine for his cheer; left him with money in hand for the supply of his immediate needs; and did not scruple—with a robust and secure honesty—even to get into debt on his behalf: since the crown of good-will would be the coming again to learn of the patient's welfare. The debt was a pledge of the intention.

That was the Lord Christ's way of looking at charitable responsibility, and at benevolent effort; and even granting that He illustrated the answer to the question, "Who is my neighbour?" by an extreme case of sudden distress, the longer we look at the peculiar needs of the man who was on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho, the more perhaps we shall be convinced that there are greater, far greater evils, and more terrible accidents, than to fall among thieves, who temporarily rob, strip, and disable their victim.

The present fashion of dealing with such an unfortunate traveller would very much depend on which particular class of philanthropists the modern Samaritan who found him by the road-side happened to belong to.

Of course, it would be a scandal to our Christianity to follow either priest or Levite, although our cowardly sympathies might lie between the two; so, in order to make all safe, we hit on a compromise, and, according to our circumstances, try to find a medium line of conduct between Samaritan and Levite, or Samaritan and priest. We are ashamed to pass on without doing something, and so we call at the inn on our way, and leave the twopence there, in case anybody else should think fit to bring on the man who is lying, stunned and bleeding, in the roadway. Or else, having contrived to rouse the poor fellow to a little effort, we borrow an ass and take him back with us, to find some organised institution for the relief of those who fall among thieves, where the wine and oil are contracted for out of the funds. And there we leave him, without remembering anything whatever about the twopenny contribution which would represent our own share in the benefaction.

It is an awful thought, and one which it may be hoped will soon become intolerable, that, with the mechanical perfection of means for relieving the necessities of those who are afficted, there seems to grow upon us a deadly indifference to the very deepest need of all—that personal, human sympathy, without which all our boast of benevolence is but as the sounding of brass and the tinkling of a cymbal. Can it be possible that we are approaching a condition when, refusing to have the poor and the afficted, the widow and the orphan always with us, we shut them away out of our sight, leaving the whole duty of visiting them, of clothing them, of giving them meat and drink, to be done by an official committee; a charitable board, distributing doles, exactly calculated, on a carefully devised scale, and divided to the ounce or the inch, in supposed proportion to the individual need of each recipient? Will there ever come a time when we shall persuade ourselves that we fulfill the law of Christ by paying so much in the pound for a charity rate, and leaving all the actual "relief" to be effected by an official department. or a series of official committees?

The government can and should execute the will of the people in accordance with that countries laws or constitution. And this can be a very good thing. To take government out so completely is simple anarchy which I completely abhor.

Mises and Hayek never had a good understanding of how government can work. It sure wasn't good for England during Margaret Thatcher.

But, you can be an Austrian. There is better available though.

What makes you think Margaret Thatcher followed Austrian economics? She went directly against it with her price controls, wage controls, and manipulation of the money supply. Neither Mises, Hayek, nor other Austrian economists, ever advised doing those things.

That is actually fairly close to Keynesian economic policies. He is the one that said the government ought to do all those things.

Please, don't ignore my point about anarchy Gary.

1. Your hypocrisy is getting pretty deep. You have ignored the vast majority of questions I have asked you and the points I have made. Now you insist that I answer a "point" that isn't even based in reality?

2. Your "point" displays a vast ignorance of history. Was the US an "anarchy" from the colonial days to the closing decade or so of the 19th century? In those days the US ran almost a complete lassez faire economy. There was little to no government interference in the economy, and in that time period the US went from being a small collection of British colonies to an economic super power in the world. Its incredible financial growth came directly from a free market economy. There was little to no government debt, no income taxes, no government social welfare programs, and millions of people emigrated here from all over the world just so they could have the opportunity to succeed due to their own hard work. If that is "anarchy", I'll eat my hat.

Don't forget about all the government management, or interference, depending on how you look at it during the 1860's with the new type of money created by the government. It's true the 10% tax on the state currencies was unconstitutional, but, most of these economic changes were a real plus to the economy.

One again, you ignore completely what I say and the questions I ask you, and then just assert something new with zero evidence to back up your conclusion....

This is what you call honest discussion/debate?

Once again, I did not ignore your post. I responded correctly to what you posted. All because you don't understand what I say, well, then you don't get it!

But, during the period of time in US history you have been stressing, these events I mention did happen. Such as, we had a central bank for 40 years during that same period when you said there wasn't a central bank. You were wrong! I guess you missed that too.

***shakes head in amazement***

Answered correctly? Huh? I don't understand what you say? What arrogance. You have supplied nothing but unsupported assertions. And I am to just accept your blarney that has no facts, no figures, no evidence behind it? Get real.

You don't have any evidence for your beliefs because none exists! But, you refuse to admit that.

You can whine forever. I don't owe you anything.

No, you don't owe me anything, other than what one Christian owes to another: honesty, forthrightness, and respect. You know, those things that a person owes to Christ by taking His name and professing to be His follower. And that you have not done.