Re: American health care best? No...Most expensive? Yes...Ranked 12th

From: Steve Harris sbharris_at_ROMAN9.netcom.com (sbharris_at_ix.netcom.com)
Date: 07/05/04

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    Date: 4 Jul 2004 18:34:31 -0700

    > "Dr. Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD" <andrew@heartmdphd.com> wrote in message news:<40E698A8.3554@heartmdphd.com>...
    > >
    > > Christ's second commandment would be more effective.
    >
    > What, you think these gang bangers haven't heard it?
    >

    Chung:
    Christ is more effective than either you or I in our white coats and
    stethoscopes. What do you think?

    COMMENT:

    I'll tell you what I think. I think Santa Claus is more effective than
    Christ, because I've seen kids do things for him that they'll never do
    for Christ.

    The problem with Christ is that he's just basically Santa for adults.
    By rumor, he's making a list and checking it twice, gunna find out
    who's naughty and nice, and one day he's coming to town. `Cept until
    then he's awfully scarce, you notice? Has an unlisted phone number and
    email and even mail (hell, Santa can be reached at North Pole, Alaska,
    not far from Fairbanks-- I've been there and he seemed nice enough).
    Christ doesn't seem to have my email address, even though he should.
    And he never visits me (come on, he doesn't need a chimney). And he
    must be really shy about photos, because although other people SAY he
    visits them, they never seem to have a handshake picture, like they do
    with the President. And I'll bet they'd pay money for it, too. "Me and
    Jesus the Christ. Taken in St. Peter's square, 7/1/01. Glowing
    autograph. $479.95. Less than airfare to Rome!"

    You know, I think the Christ is actually a made-up person, just like
    Santa and the Tooth Fairy. What do you think? Like the Loch Ness
    Monster, Bigfoot, and those little gray aliens with bug eyes, the
    living Jesus is never around when you really need him to show up to
    settle an argument. That's really fishy. If he'd just hold a telephone
    ike Howard Hughes once did, or better yet video, he could do a lot of
    scotch those rumors that he's actually been dead for some time. And if
    Jesus is still alive, I'll bet he looks better than Hughes, and isn't
    addicted to codeine, so it could be fun. We could bring in Dan Rather,
    some loaves and fishes, and have a better audience percentage than the
    last superbowl.

    CHung:
    >I agree there is more confusion when you blur the distinction between
    >economic systems with political systems.

    >It is one thing to let people know that you have a better mousetrap
    to >sell more mousetraps.

    >It is another thing to come up with a catchy jingle or ad campaign to
    >sell more inferior product.

    COMMENT:

    Is it the jingle and ad campaign you object to, or the inferior
    product?

    I suppose you don't object to ad campaigns like your website, where
    you claim to have an "edge" due to "preventive cardiac techniques
    exclusive and proprietary to my practice?" Yeah? Well, an edge over
    who? Other cardiologists who don't have these exclusive techniques?
    Well, it wouldn't be an edge at all unless you were claiming your
    "proprietary" and "exclusive" techniques were better than everyone
    else's, now would it? If somebody else's techniques are better, then
    you're engaged in false advertising. If your own are better than
    anybody else's, how come you don't have the Nobel Prize? And failing
    that, WHERE'S YOUR PROOF? I must've missed your last authoritative
    survey in Circulation or the NEJM.

    The problem here is you're hoist with your own petard. You object to
    people advertising any but the best product, but you've done it
    yourself, right here. You have no evidence. Which means you're full of
    baloney. I think that's all logical.

    > Or at least, they all try to. None of
    > them are perfectly effective. I see no point in you even making the
    > comment, when it applies not only to capitalism but also to socialism
    > and Communism.
    >
    > You bring up "free markets" out of the air. Who said anything about
    > "free markets." ??

    >Most people associate advertising with free markets. Are you now
    >claiming that you did not bring up advertising,
    >Dr. Harris?

    COMMENT:

    COMMENT
    I brought up advertising. We have to have a word for what we're
    talking about when you talk about "making people want things." People
    may associate advertising with free markets—-I don't know. They may
    associate smoke with coal locomotives. So what? When you have a coal
    locomotive you usually have smoke. The reverse isn't usually true.

    > You bring up the term as though it was synonymous
    > with capitalism. It's not.
    >I bring it up because it is associated with advertising.

    COMMENT:
    And smoke is associated with coal locomotives. It doesn't not follow
    that where there's smoke there's a coal locomotive.

    Harris
    > Free market implies a market in which
    > trades are supervised by some kind of governing trade authority, which
    > prevents open theft and also adjudicates and guarantees fairness and
    > nonviolent conflict resolution in the case of trade disagreements.

    Chung;

    >Would suggest you stick with the definition:

    http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=free+market

    Main Entry: free market
    Function: noun
    an economic market operating by free competition

    COMMENT:

    Would suggest you don't post definitions too brief to be meaningful.
    The one above is too abbreviated to be very useful, and just re-uses,
    without comment, one of the words in the phrase to be defined. That's
    not very helpful. It assumes you know the prerequisites and
    requirements of "free competition." I merely listed them out. They
    apply to everything from pro-football to the Olympics to a flea market
    or bazaar.

    Chung:
    > > Though it [advertising/marketing] does not define it, you have to admit that it is a feature of
    > > American-style capitalism.

    Harris;
    > It's a feature of every kind of political system. They show goods and
    > services in newspapers and on TV. I guarantee you they do it in Cuba
    > and Sweden, and they did it in the old USSR. My point is: so what?
    >

    Chung:
    You started with the view that "capitalism gives people what they
    want" and I countered with capitalism using advertising/marketing to
    convince people to buy (or eat) what they don't need (creating markets
    where none previously existed).

    COMMENT:

    You haven't been paying attention. First of all, the distinction
    between what people merely want and what they really need, is
    meaningless. It's a matter of individual taste. I've seen people die
    rather than violate their values, and indeed I've seen them die rather
    than violate their standard of what kind of life is the best to live.
    There's no arguing with any of this, so long as they don't use force
    to makes me or somebody else go along.

    Second, although capitalism may be good at giving people what they
    want, the idea that capitalism is somehow specially gifted at creating
    wants where none existed before, is hogwash. Most non-casual
    interactions between animals and animals, between animals and humans,
    and between humans and humans, and which don't involve the use of
    force, instead involve some kind of advertising. That's often how
    people finally know what they want, and how to get what they want. And
    yet most human interaction (counting both public and private) is not
    economic, even in a capitalist society. You want to get married? You'd
    better create a market for yourself where none existed before (very
    few people carry perfect police-sketches of the mate they're looking
    for around with them, until one they finally, by total luck stumble
    upon the suspect). You even want to get your kids to go to bed without
    threat of violence? Then you'd better figure out how to shape
    pre-existing child-wants into YOUR wants. This is not capitalism.
    Capitalism isn't responsible for most of this kind of thing in the
    world. Capitalism didn't make the anglerfish's lure, nor the pea***'s
    tail.

    Send me your address, Dr. Chung. I'll have the Mormon missionaries
    come out and convince you that a Book of Mormon is just what you need,
    and therefore should be just what you want. And right now there are
    Christian missionaries trying to do the same to Hindus and to Russian
    atheists.

    Capitalism doesn't run the world, Dr. Chung. The need for dominance,
    power, control, and successful reproduction run the world. Capitalism
    is merely one of the minor techniques we humans have for accomplishing
    these goals. But it's not the most important one, by far.

    SBH

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