FedEx's CEO on McCain, free trade and the tax bias against capital-intensive industries.

OK. How about measuring various health care systems against themselves? What I am putting forward is that given that we are talking about improvement in the types of metrics used to compare health care systems, the US system would improve it's output by being public to an extent.

Various implementations are possible from direct government ownership of hospitals to means-tested health care subsidies & everything in between. Obviously crappy implementation has the ability to make things worse. But within the realm of the currently probable, steps taken in that direction would probably lead to an improved result.

But again, that's a purely technical line of argument. I think that in this case the rule of thumb economic liberalism is wrong. I'm reasonable happy to let economists bash that one out. But I do think that in the absense of an overwhelming victory for one of the practical debates, the moral argument here is very strong.

practical grounds

That's an area worthy of discussion in itself. Even if you do believe that drug use is deeply immoral, but see that the consequences of prohibition on are so severe, it'd be very rational to let it slide. But then, I wonder what I would think if I did understand drug use to be deeply immoral in the same sense as rape or murder is immoral. Would I allow legalised rape if the long term if the consequences of prohibiting it were as severe as the drug case. I dn't know how to answer that. (*Most would say no to a purely utilitarian approach http://www.nysun.com/arts/putting-practice-into-ethics/69595...)

For me that particular issue is all about practical. It's hard for me to see any justification for drug prohibition on moral grounds, just the opposite. It's an infringement on liberties. So there have to be net benefit reasons. But I would consider the flipside. In Australia (where I live) Alcohol & gambling are legal. Certain communities (usually extremely remote communities) here have severe social problems linked to abuse of these. Very severe. Some have decided that Alcohol prohibition (like dry counties in the states) are necessary to get the situation under control.

Even though I think individuals should have the right to consume alcohol, in these circumstances the prohibition creates large net gain for the community. I'm OK with that.

In most cases, someone else's fire has no (direct) effect on you either, so I'm not sure what the relevance of that assertion is. Nor am I talking about the spread of disease, but rather the socioeconomic effects of having an untreated medical condition, which may not affect you very much, but which can have serious effects for a family and their ability to contribute to the economy. See Gladwell's The Moral-Hazard Myth: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/08/29/050829fa_fact and Uninsured in America, a book which Gladwell cites in the article.

I'm also not sure how you got the impression that I think the public should "protect people from all of the bad things that can befall them." What I believe is that an entity capable of making a credible threat on the public's behalf must ensure that market incentives are properly aligned with the public good, when they are demonstrably not in alignment. That entity tends to be the government. If there's another entity that can do the job more effectively, that's great. I don't entertain any sort of dogma about the "proper" role of the government.

I don't see how tort reform counters the inefficiencies of the health industries.

And diet certainly is a problem. But I'm not sure how the fact that there is a cultural basis to many of our health problems bears upon the problem of misaligned market incentives in the health industry. No one is saying that government is the sole force in ensuring the public health. People who think the government might have a role to play typically don't think that individual judgment goes out the window.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12699486/paul_kru...

Explains why capital gains is largely just a loophole in the tax code exploited by the uber-rich. Also, if you dig around through public data, you find that the top 10% of Americans make about 70% of the income and pay about 70% of the personal taxes. Sounds fair right?

However, the top 1% make about 47% and pay only 39%, meaning the next 9% make about 23% but pay 31%. Is it just at all that the top 1% of America has a lower tax burden than the next 9%? Thank capital gains taxes for that.

I can't find the data, but if you were to break this down even further by 10th of a percent, you'd probably find that even more exaggerated.

By taxing capital gains, you hit the millionaire store-keeper who sold his shop and is now retired living on investments, the startup guys just cashing out, the day-trader who made a mint. In short, the transitional folks. You keep slightly-rich people from becoming super-rich. The really rich don't seem to be encumbered by any one nation's tax laws.

My opinion only. Sorry for butting in. I was hoping you guys would cover this point but I haven't seen it so far in your discussion.