Today’s Thoughts . . . Sept. 27, 2013

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Lots of talk about the impending arrival of Obamacare – in  particular, the oxymoronic “market exchanges” set to open in a few days. This is of a piece with government-ese such as calling the captives at the DMV or IRS “customers.” It’s not a market when you’re forced to buy – anymore than you are a customer when you have no choice about being there.Obamacare picture

Anyhow, the aspect of this foul business I wanted to rant about is the suggestion – repeatedly made – that Obamacare will save young workers so much money.

I was a young worker once. Want to know how I saved money?

By not signing up for health insurance – which is something most 24-year-olds need about as much as most 80-year-olds need a skateboard.

Sure, you might break a leg. It’s possible, I suppose, that a 24-year-old could develop a serious illness such as cancer. Possible – but not very.

Hardly, more like it.

It’s sensible, therefore – and neither irresponsible nor (as the collectivists style it) “selfish” – to skip insurance in one’s young 20s – and instead save the money and put it toward the things that will make later life more financially secure – which will then allow you to deal with medical problems far better than you’d be able to if you haven’t built wealth by then.

How, exactly, is a young man or woman supposed to save up the 10 percent cash payment most lenders demand in order to qualify for a home loan when one is handing over $300 a month to the insurance Mafia? Even if it’s only $200 a month, it adds up real quick. $2,400 a year – for say five years, from 24 to 29 – and (poof!) there went $12,000. How many recent college grads, just starting out in their chosen profession, can afford to toss $12k?

I couldn’t.

So, I did an inventory. I was young. I was healthy. I neither smoked nor drank (much). It seemed to me to be a low risk, high-yield thing to skip the insurance. To accept the slight possibility that I might have to deal with a major medical issue vs. the absolute certainty of throwing $12k out the window.

Instead, I put that money toward my first house. Which put me in the position to be able to buy my next house. Which enabled me to build wealth rather than give it away.

These notions – risk taking, cost-benefit analysis and most of all, free choice, are anathema under Obamacare. The government will decide for you which risks are too risky; will take away your freedom to choose. Today’s 24-year-olds will find it much harder to build wealth because their wealth will be taken from them – along with their liberty.

The smart ones know this already. The dumb ones – the ones who believe there is such a thing as a free lunch – and the collectivized ones, who want to make other people pay for theirs – are about to learn a rude lesson.

I’m glad I’m not 24 anymore.

13 COMMENTS

  1. ► I vote Democrat because I think it’s better to pay billions of dollars to people who hate us rather than drill for our own oil, because it might upset some endangered beetle or gopher.
    ► I vote Democrat because I believe it is okay if liberal activist judges rewrite the Constitution to suit some fringe kooks, who would otherwise never get their agenda past the voters.
    ► I vote Democrat because I believe that corporate America should not be allowed to make profits for themselves or their shareholders. They need to break even and give the rest to the federal government for redistribution.
    ► I vote Democrat because I’m not concerned about millions of babies being aborted, so long as we keep all of the murderers on death row alive.
    ► I vote Democrat because I believe it’s okay if my Nobel Peace Prize winning President uses drones to assassinate people, as long as we don’t use torture.
    ► I vote Democrat because I believe people, who can’t accurately tell us if it will rain on Friday, can predict the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Chevy Volt.
    ► I vote Democrat because Freedom of Speech is not as important as preventing people from being offended.
    ► I vote Democrat because I believe the oil companies’ profit of 3% on a gallon of gas is obscene, but the federal government taxing that same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t obscene.
    ► I vote Democrat because I believe a moment of silent prayer at the beginning of the school day constitutes government indoctrination and an intrusion on parental authority ….. but sex education, condom distribution and multiculturalism are all values-neutral.
    ► I vote Democrat because I agonize over threats to the natural environment from CO2, acid rain and toxic waste ….. but I am totally oblivious of the threats to our social environment from pornography, promiscuity and family dissolution.
    ► I vote Democrat because I believe lazy, uneducated stoners should have just as big a say in running our country as entrepreneurs who risk everything and work 70 hours per week.
    ► I vote Democrat because I don’t like guns ….. so no one else should be allowed to own one.
    ► I vote Democrat because I see absolutely no correlation between welfare and the rise of illegitimacy.
    ► I vote Democrat because I see absolutely no correlation between judicial leniency and surging crime rates.
    ► I vote Democrat because I believe marriage is obsolete, except for homosexuals.
    ► I vote Democrat because I think AIDS is spread by insufficient funding.
    ► I vote Democrat because I think “fairness” is far more important than freedom.
    ► I vote Democrat because I think an “equal outcome” is far more important than equal opportunity.
    And lastly, I vote Democrat because I’m convinced that government programs are the solution to the human condition, NOT freedom

    /sarc 🙂

  2. Hans Blix – Even if a regime uses chemical weapons, the West has no mandate to act as a global policeman.

    It is true that the UN security council is not a reliable global policeman. It may be slow to take action, or paralyzed because of disagreement between members. But do we want the US or NATO or “alliances of willing states” as global policemen either?

    Such action could not be “in self-defense” or “retaliation”, as the US, the UK and France have not been attacked. To punish the Assad government for using chemical weapons would be the action of self-appointed global policemen – action that, in my view, would be very unwise.

    West Is Not A Global Policeman
    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/chemical-weapons-west-global-policeman

    Hans Blix warns against repeating Iraq war in Iran
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMtnAztaJrM

    • I love it when the US government refers to other governments as “regimes.”

      They’re all “regimes”!

      One capo regime battling with another for turf.

      • Me too. “Shit only stinks whenever I say it stinks”, said Humpty! (Pssst – Humpty Dumpty is a rotten egg!)

        Everywhere is a UN member state except three:

        Holy See – Sovereign entity where the Holy See-men reside and exercise statehood over the territory of the Vatican City.

        State of Palestine – Recognized by 132 UN Members
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_the_State_of_Palestine

        Republic of China is member with disputed name? (Chinese Taipei/Rep of China, part of China, or independent daughter of China)
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Taipei

        Classes in the Article:
        UN Member States
        Alliances of “willing states”
        Security Council
        NATO Members
        US UK and alliance of “friendly states
        Strong body of world opinion
        Rebel groups
        Rebels
        Regime
        Parties
        Clients
        Unanimous world condemnationers
        Globally indignant

        The UN UN-Nazied the world forever! – Idiocracy
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd2ydct3rBU

        • Dear Tor,

          The really sad thing about the Taiwan region is that most people here, Blue and Green, desperately want it to be a “member of the UN.”

          How pathetic is that?

          Their mindset is that “Gee, Taiwan is an elective democracy. It deserves to be a full-fledged member of the UN!”

          Talk about your successful NWO Monarch Programming.

      • Yeah… That old tired canard. When you label the DC “regime”… ex: Obama Regime, you get gutteral grunts and endless mewling along with bug-eyed glares. It’s so sadly absurd that idiot Americans can’t see themselves for what they are.

      • Dear Eric,

        Quite right.

        Power struggles between the “leaders of nations” are really nothing more than turf wars between “capos of families.”

        They are attempts to become the “capo di tutti capi,” i.e., “the boss of all bosses.”

        Michael Corleone Had It Right 41 Years Ago
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAdUuGsi30g

        Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.
        Kay Adams: Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don’t have men killed.
        Michael: Oh. Who’s being naive, Kay?

        The analogy is so apt it’s not even an “analogy.” It’s a literal description.

        The Chinese expression is

        “Those who emerge victorious become kings. Those who are defeated remain brigands.”

        In other words, as Rothbard noted, the state is “the organization of robbery systematized and writ large.”

  3. Kowloon Walled City – A place without government or law

    Kowloon Walled City Park

    – more bullshit bollockry brought to you by Britfags

    Comments On Walled Park Video:

    The city was far better.

    Just another boring park. Rebuild demolished Kowloon Walled City. Brick for brick, tile for tile. In the meantime, I give a little RIP to KWCuntil we see it again

    Who knows, there could (one day) be another city just like it. :/ No government, no nothing.

    To bad China couldn’t Remodel or Modernize Kowloon wall city. Change the name from City of Darkness to City of Hope.

    they destroyed a gem

    Boooooo!!!!

    This is the result of the ‘Nanny’ leadership of the guilt-stricken West foisted upon healthy barbarians like HK and Kowloon. They got what they wanted – another antiseptic, bloodless, deadly-dull urban park. But no worries! The globalist / bankster New World Order will make possible 100 slum castles like the KWC! Coming soon enough.

  4. I don’t know why people believe anything government tells them. I remember my grandfather telling me how he almost died in a concentration camp, He had been drinking pretty heavily, and he accidentally fell three stories down from out of a guard tower. He would have never been in that dangerous position if it wasn’t for his government.

    I know, jew might find holocaust jokes in bad taste, anne frankly I agree, but sometimes, I go outside of mein kampfort zone, because how can you nazi the humor in the absurdity of the human condition?

    Bleeds for 5 days – Mr. Garrison
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDUq9BBr3bA

    Best of Mr Garrison
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdcYxShbkvY

    – people that use “the law” as an excuse remind me of Mr Garrison. They consider themselves virtuous, anything they do that’s evil, they conveniently blame on some imaginary sock puppet of authority, an imaginary scapegoat they facetiously claim isn’t them, when it obviously is.

  5. “since the sole source of their profitability is that they win the bet more often then their “customers.”

    True. Insurance companies are indeed betting that you will never have an accident, illness, fire, etc. You’re betting that you will. They get to welsh on the bet when they lose, at their whim.

    The laws are written to favor them. For instance, if an insurance company cheats you, it’s called “bad faith” and it’s a civil court matter, a tort. If you cheat an insurance company, it’s “insurance fraud” a felony criminal offense.

    Betting against the house, by paying for an insurance policy is as sure a loser as betting against a casino, but where the casino pads their odds with the double zero on a wheel, insurance companies have the option of raking in the chips even when you win the bet.

  6. Valid points. I never bought insurance as a young worker either. The whole thing about insurance is that if the insurance company is in business, it means that they are winning the “bet” every time.

    You can’t simultaneously call something “insurance” if it has to accept pre-existing conditions and charge the same premium as no pre-existing condition. In insurance speak – a pre-existing condition = 100% probability of paying a claim.

    If this were applied to homeowners insurance, then the family who never had insurance and whose house already burnt to the ground could get it at the same rate as me – who has been paying in for 20 years without ever filing a claim.

    It is ludicrous on its face.

    If an insurance company is profitable, it’s a very good bet you shouldn’t have it – since the sole source of their profitability is that they win the bet more often then their “customers.”

    If anything is mandatory – it is certainly not good. Why would something so good ever need to be mandatory?

    • Blake I always liked Robert Heinlein’s view of insurance, the one he describes in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. One of the characters asks about the lack of insurance companies and is told that if he wants insurance all he needs to do is go down to the old dome and find a bookie.

      I appreciated the unvarnished truth of that. It’s the way it should be in my opinion.

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