**** Elections thread *****

[wufwugy]

Your easily bought government. And no, getting rid of government is not the right solution. As I always tell you, look around.

I have proposed reducing the power of government to create laws for special interests. This prohibition on government is the source of rights and it is the best known way (perhaps only way) to keep government from screwing people over for the highest bidder or the most energized group.

I know this wuf. And yes, it is relevant; you argue it is the best way to tackle this problem, so it should have already been tackled in this particular way elsewhere if that is true.

That is not correct. Just because well established theory says one thing doesn't mean that the theory would have been put in practice empirically. Economics has never been a field strong with empiricism. Even though many economists try very hard to rectify that, the best scholarship in the field is essentially philosophical and logical argumentation regarding some concepts and constraints of human behavior and resource allocation.

Instead, elsewhere have vastly different ways of dealing with this problem which have already been proven to be effective, much more effective than what you currently have.

They have not been proven to be effective. There are very significant problems in these systems that emerge from the government intervention. There is also significant benefits these systems get from existing in an open economy with the less restrictive American system.

And yet you keep arguing your way is better. Or better said, SHOULD be better. But you offer no prior example showing your method in practice in this particular field; only general theories which should work.

I give you economic theory, which tells us a lot. Empirical results in economics don't tell us much at all. Even the most standard implications from the most logically sound and wide in consensus theories have not been demonstrated empirically sufficiently enough to make conclusions. There are just way too many confounding variables and too few constants.



A person knowing next to nothing about economics yet acting like he knows enough to discard any bit of economics that is explained to him is very common. I'm not going to continue this with you unless you drop your hubris and open up to the idea that I have been generously trying to help you learn stuff that you know nothing about.

[wufwugy]

That is not correct. Just because well established theory says one thing doesn't mean that the theory would have been put in practice empirically. Economics has never been a field strong with empiricism. Even though many economists try very hard to rectify that, the best scholarship in the field is essentially philosophical and logical argumentation regarding some concepts and constraints of human behavior and resource allocation.

I want to clarify this point because I think it is misleading.

Empirical research is very important in economics. The issue is that it is really hard to get empirical evidence to "tell the truth" while it is pretty easy to get empirical evidence to tell one what he wants to hear. The phrase "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess" is quite apropos in the field.

Because of some serious constraints regarding empiricism in economics, what economists try to do (for the most part) is use well-established models or innovate on them in creative ways that seem theoretically sound. Then they inform those models with data and see what happens. Sometimes some empirical trends arise when this is done many times in a variety of relevant situations.

Regarding the European healthcare systems that are claimed to have proven to be effective, the criticisms from economic models upon those systems are not about whether or not they are effective, and the data don't comment on "effectiveness" that much either. The data do, however, reveal what the economic criticisms have to say. The criticisms are that the European systems, regardless of "effectiveness", suffer from some specific problems predicted by economic theory. The basic form of those problems are quantity, quality, and innovation are lower than they could be and costs are higher than they could be. The data suggest this and fit the theory. Some examples of this are the significant amount of rationing in those systems, how patients that have the opportunity receive better care outside of the systems, and how taxes to pay for the systems are high and increasing. These systems are not that old (have not shown much antifragility) and they have significant problems that economic theory predicts that the data strongly suggest they have.