no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics

Category Archives: American Politics

Health Care Reform Rains on Ski Resorts

April 5th, 2010

There’s going to be a lot of fallout from the health care “reform” that’s recently been forced upon America. For starters, certain plans (i.e., high deductible or catastrophic plans) will be de jure illegal — even though most people who buy these plans do so with eyes wide open and with the financial wherewithal to deal with all but the most catastrophic perils. And it’s going to cause a lot of disruptions for a lot of industries, who are already spending millions of dollars on lobbyists (to fight the laws), lawyers (to analyze and make recommendations) and consultants (for advice on how to deal with the changes).

The snow sports/resorts industry hasn’t been spared, either, according to Vail Daily:

New federal health care reform could cost Vail Resorts and other ski companies a lot of money in 2014, the year a provision goes into effect that fines employers $2,000 for every employee that works more than 120 days per year and isn’t offered health care coverage…

Ski areas often employee seasonal, part-time workers who, under the new law, would qualify for employer heath care coverage even though the employees are not considered full-time employees.

— Vail Resorts Eyes Health Reform Costs (April 2, 2010)

I don’t even know where to begin with this. Of course everyone should be “offered health care coverage” but that kind of misses the mark. Health care reform isn’t asking employers to “offer” health care, it’s requiring that they provide health care. There’s a difference here.

I’ve said it before, that the biggest problem with “health care” in the U.S. is that it is essentially tied to one’s employment, and furthermore that those who happen to be employed receive health care on favorable terms compared to the unemployed or the self-employed due to the unintended consequences of World War II-era price controls, embodied in a tax code which treats employer-provided health care “benefits” differently than personal health care expenditures.

Nothing in the so-called health care “reform” (which was drafted primarily by the health care industry) does anything to address the source of the problem. Requiring people to buy a product from an oligopoly will only solidify their power.

So what will happen if this “reform” really does require resorts to offer provide health care to their seasonal, part-time workers?

Those $90 lift tickets are going to get a bit more expensive, and it’s likely that some people currently employed will become unemployed as the marginal costs of employing them exceeds their value-add. If you’re currently working for $10 an hour and you work 1,000 hours a winter, you’re costing the company $10,000. If, next year, the company has to provide you with $3,000 worth of health care, that’s like giving you a 30% raise. What will happen is that they’ll pay you $7/hour, or they’ll do without you, because nobody, anywhere, ever, gets a 30% raise without sucking serious CEO dick and then blackmailing him for it.

Any political measure which forcibly raises the costs of doing business will be passed on to individual taxpayers. Taxes are (always and everywhere) borne by individuals, and not by “corporations”. These costs may be borne as reduced profits/dividends for shareholders, reduced wages, hours or other benefits for employees, and last-but-not-least, as higher prices for customers.

The end result is that we all suffer, while the force of law underwrites the insurance companies’ profitability.

Public Law 93-531

March 29th, 2010

On the flight home from Utah in February, I picked up a copy of some hipster zine that some previous Southwest Airlines customer had left in the seatback in front of me.

IMG00135-20100222-1248Thumbing through the pages, I read a brief article about Public Law 93-351 (you can read some history about it here), which was appalling on a number of levels.

What was once thought to be barren desert “only fit for Indians to live on” proved to be rich in oil, coal, uranium, and copper

And so the corporate interests, eager to exploit the land’s mineral rights, successfully lobbied the federal government to install puppet governments (amenable to corporate interests) among the Hopi and Dineh tribes which began selling-out to Uncle Sam about a century ago. Eventually though, that was not enough so they fabricated a dispute between the two tribes and the resultant solution was to force relocation of thousands of natives (in order that the land may be strip-mined for its valuable resources).

This happened in 1974.

If you think even for one second that the U.S. government is above imperialism, that they don’t do this sort of thing and that the complaints coming from the less-developed countries against the American Empire are unfounded, hateful propaganda, I think you’re sadly mistaken.

They’re willing to do this. Right here in the good ol’ US of A.

They’re more than capable of perpetrating atrocities just like this (in reality, probably much worse than this) in resource-rich foreign countries where the brown-skinned population has no effective voice, steward or guardian, and media coverage is slim to non-existent.

Political Power, Government Employees and Inequality

March 29th, 2010

Christopher George responded to my semi-recent post about government employees being overpaid.

He argues that not every government job is a “complete waste” and notes (astutely, I might add) that the “‘private’ economy isn’t all that productive either.” OK, fine. But if they want to be productive in a free market, let them be productive in a free market. On the basis of their own supposition they don’t get a free pass to just sit back and say “Well, I suspect that my occupation would exist in a free market, so my hands are clean!”

Chris says I’m engaging in unnecessary class conflict when I call them leeches. I don’t know how else to accurately describe the vast majority of “public” employees whose occupations wouldn’t exist without the government’s interference, and who earn (on average) at least fifty percent more than a comparable “private” employees.

So, I mean, yes, you can pooh-pooh public employees because they survive off tax money, but there are those out there who do work hard and are still productive.

A bank robber “works” awfully hard, too. I’m not pooh-pooing public employees for their productivity (or a lack thereof), I’m pooh-poohing them for the means by which they acquire their income. Maybe this applies with some force to “private” employees, too.  I get the incentives at work here, (as in “a guy’s gotta eat) but Chris… you can’t say “Government employees aren’t the problem, it’s TEH SYSTEM!” You can’t just cast all the blame on some nebulous and intangible amalgamation called “political power” which doesn’t exist without the actions of men and women.

Where does “the system” come from? What (or who) enables and perpetuates it? Yes, the problem is the politically powerful vs. the politically weak, but the politically powerful just happen to be (for the most part) employed by the government.

I’m not saying that they’re the (as in “the only”) problem, I’m saying that they’re a problem. That they’re one very motivated, highly incentivized political class which contributes probably as much to inequality as any other factor.

Chris is right, that attacking the government employees (especially the lower-level ones) isn’t going to win me any friends. And it probably isn’t going to change any minds or make anyone see the proverbial light I’ve got plenty of constructive posts here, it just seems a little nitpicky to single out one of my “rants”). I never claimed to be an ambassador of goodwill, so if certain comments of mine come off as a little incendiary, that’s just the way its going to be.

But I don’t see this as an attack. I see it as a statement of fact.  If they object to my choice of language or descriptors, let them reflect as to why I’ve been so provoked.

no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics