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It’s my body, not the governments

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  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    edited April 2018
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    I see both sides of this argument honestly. There are MLMs out there claiming wild *kitten* things that have no scientific backing and people gullible enough to believe them. Government (the FDA) has stepped in for limited cases and made companies stop claiming things not scientifically true. I agree with this.

    On the other side of that, my wife has a genetic condition (MTHFR) which is pretty common. She can't produce the enzymes effectively needed to break down synthetic B vitamins (mostly B12 and Folic Acid) to useful downstream products her body can use, so she has to take the "methyl" versions or active versions of certain B vitamins. This has helped her health tremendously. When Methyl Bs were first discovered, the only one that sold them was one pharmaceutical company and they were around $300 a bottle. Now, I assume the patent expired but they are only around $15 a bottle now. I certainly don't want the government to "step in" again and turn over Methyl Bs, a simple vitamin, to be under the control of only large pharmaceutical companies. The price would be outrageous. Same with AHCC. It's a mushroom derivative that helps cancer patients with side effects of chemo (and some say helps improve immunity as well also helping in cancer therapy). One company in Japan makes all the AHCC in the world. Several nutraceutical companies sell it for around $60 a bottle. Two pharmaceutical companies sell the exact same product but charge between $300 and $500 a bottle. If you restrict the sale of AHCC to pharmaceutical companies, anyone that needs it with cancer loses.

    The problem is, when you have legislators determining what's regulated and what's not, that's an issue. And most with FDA have financial ties to the drug industry, hardly unbiased. Look at how little Congressmen knew about Facebook! Their ignorance was stunning. And this was with prep!
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    edited April 2018
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    stanmann571 wrote: »
    jgnatca wrote: »
    For those who advocate minimal government, I wonder how they propose completing national collaborative projects? And if another agency is used, how is it any less bureaucratic than the government?

    Take roads for instance. An enterprising citizen may be able to take care of the pot-hole outside their property, but what about a nation spanning highway or railway? Such projects demand collaborative effort.

    Paygo.

    FedEx/DHL/UPS do better than USPS for most stuff larger than 2 lbs.

    A Paygo transit system would likely do so as well.

    Whilst that would be a reasonable approach in the economy as it was in the 19th Century, the practicality would stymie wider development. Gladstonian Liberalism didn't survive the emergent needs towards the end of the industrial revolution. A level of intervention reduced economic fratricide.

    Going back to the original question, different products all regulated in different ways. Essentially the question becomes whether there should be any regulatory environment for pharmaceuticals, or should there be a free for all.

    One could take the position that the market will tend to penalise those that sell dangerous products. At it's most extreme what happens if a product explicitly results in death? Who bears responsibility, and how is that enforced? Is there a suggestion that there should be no regulatory environment?

    Assuming that there is a regulatory environment, you're then into profit motive. Is it cost effective to process something through that regulatory environment, to prove that the product is safe and effective. We also know that most medications have side effects, so that needs to be managed. Hel even medication for athletes foot causes liver damage if used for a protracted period.

    So on the basis that there is a regulatory environment, the reason that many things are banned, is because they're not profitable enough to be worth processing through. That may be because they're easily replicated, or it may be because a socially conservative culture would create significant barriers to approval; marijuana.

    It's also interesting that upthread, having whined about some things being unapproved, there are a few narcotic that are accepted as appropriately illegal.

    fwiw the political party that I'd tend to support have a long standing policy around the legalisation of marijuana. Biggest opponents of legalisation tend to be those who most complain about government interference.
  • johnslater461
    johnslater461 Posts: 449 Member
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    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    All governments do is enact laws that regulate society to maximize things that benefit the society and minimize the things that harm the society. They can do that either through force (in the form of policing and jail time) or they can do that through incentives and disincentives such as tax breaks or fines.

    I think adults should be able to do whatever they want to do but I wouldn't go as far as to say they should be free of any consequences for their actions that a society dictates. If you want to be reckless you can be reckless but if society deems that that sort of behavior is harmful and decides it would be of the most benefit to that society to discourage that behavior via disincentives to me that just makes sense. The requirement to wear seatbelts for example.

    I guess I view it this way. You aren't alone, you are part of a society...a team. If you were the only person on a field you could run and kick and punch and do whatever you want but if you are part of a team playing a sport on a field then there are some rules you need to abide by to remain a member of that team playing that sport.

    The difficulty comes in we can't exactly kick people out of society and in modern civilizations it is almost impossible to really be off the grid. All that said I think I would be completely fine with a person abusing steroids if they had no medical insurance and lived in the middle of the woods in Alaska somewhere where there was no chance that society would end up having to pay for the resulting heart condition or whatever other complications are likely to accompany that decision. That said as soon as that person is held up by society and given that safety net then society is perfectly within its right to make decisions with regards to what behaviors should be discouraged because they end up costing that society.

    There is still room for debate. Marijuana for example I think people are coming around to the idea that it is not all that harmful and actually society as a whole can benefit through revenue that comes from something that amounts to something about as harmful as alcohol or cigarettes. Perhaps a future society will decide that alcohol or cigerettes should be illegal but then they might find that the cost of enforcing that as a society outweighs the actual benefits and then back off of those regulations like what happened with prohibition. That is the give and take. No need to make it this weird "us versus them" the government is an other sort of situation, the government is the society...at least in a functional democracy. Now if you want to argue we don't actually live in a functional democracy that is a whole other topic.

    Very well put, and I agree completely.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
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    One thing regulated in the past few years is pure caffeine powder. Teenagers were killing themselves taking just a few grams of the stuff. Incredibly dangerous. I pointed out two things I would have a problem above if they were regulated and just one that I thought was a good idea to regulate. Just heard a story on caffeine this weekend and that's was a no-brainer to regulate. That's a perfect example of balancing the rights of individuals versus the dangers posed to society. I have to agree that no one really needs caffeine powder and the potential for misuse far outweighs the "rights" of people to have easy access to it.
  • 2aycocks
    2aycocks Posts: 415 Member
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    jgnatca wrote: »
    For those who advocate minimal government, I wonder how they propose completing national collaborative projects? And if another agency is used, how is it any less bureaucratic than the government?

    Take roads for instance. An enterprising citizen may be able to take care of the pot-hole outside their property, but what about a nation spanning highway or railway? Such projects demand collaborative effort.

    There is a difference in a collaborative effort in providing infrastructure and the government (city, state, national) telling you that you can no longer buy a Big Gulp soda because that's too much sugar.
  • tbright1965
    tbright1965 Posts: 852 Member
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    Azdak wrote: »

    Except that the more you go down that rabbit role, the more complex it becomes. Who decides who pays and how much? It’s not as simple as “those who use it”. A major infrastructure project can have far-reaching benefits that are impossible to quantify and to assign the “payment”. In most of these cases, where you end up is where we are now—a social collective that collects revenue from all and uses representative bodies elected by citizens to determine how the revenue.

    I think most grand “privatization” schemes are simplistic fantasies. For every one that can be identified as “good” (my local garbage pickup), I can name plenty that are bad to horrible. (Prisons, military support services, 401k plans). It is a cliche that government services are inherently inefficient, but I would counter that privatized services are almost always corrupt, and often cost much more than the government services they replace.

    PS: and the USPS is pretty efficient. They are hampered by the laws that govern their operations. FedEx and ups get to cherry-pick the most lucrative business. You can’t really compare them to the USPS.

    Odd, I find it the other way around.

    When I was in the military, people are rated based on the size of their kingdom. If an organization had money left over at the end of the fiscal year, they didn't return it for others to use. They spent it so they would get as much if not more the next fiscal year.

    401(k) vs Social Security, hands down, 401(k) is the big winner here. Those who pay in the maximum will get an indexed benefit of 30% of their indexed monthly wage. Those who pay in the minimum will get 90% of their indexed monthly wage as a benefit at full retirement age.

    Unlike Social Security, my return on my investment isn't diminished by putting more into the system. The first dollar I invest earns the same as the next 1000 for any given contribution.

    For Social Security, there are bend points where the 90% becomes 32% and then 15% of the indexed lifetime monthly wage.

    A very bad deal relative to the 401(k).

    Sorry, the fantasy here isn't the 401(k) but that you are getting a good deal with Social Security.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    tbright1965 wrote: »
    When I was in the military, people are rated based on the size of their kingdom. If an organization had money left over at the end of the fiscal year, they didn't return it for others to use. They spent it so they would get as much if not more the next fiscal year.

    I'm not entirely clear on your point here. Are you suggesting that the delivery of military effect is something that should be provided by the private sector?
  • tbright1965
    tbright1965 Posts: 852 Member
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    MeanderingMammal wrote: »
    tbright1965 wrote: »
    When I was in the military, people are rated based on the size of their kingdom. If an organization had money left over at the end of the fiscal year, they didn't return it for others to use. They spent it so they would get as much if not more the next fiscal year.

    I'm not entirely clear on your point here. Are you suggesting that the delivery of military effect is something that should be provided by the private sector?
    No, my point is contrary to the post quoted, I found the 401(k) to be superior to Social Security and that there was not incentive for the military to lower costs. Even when contracted out, unless the branch spending the money has an incentive to spend less, they will spend every dollar allocated, even if the goods or services are not needed.
  • ccrdragon
    ccrdragon Posts: 3,365 Member
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    tbright1965 wrote: »
    MeanderingMammal wrote: »
    tbright1965 wrote: »
    When I was in the military, people are rated based on the size of their kingdom. If an organization had money left over at the end of the fiscal year, they didn't return it for others to use. They spent it so they would get as much if not more the next fiscal year.

    I'm not entirely clear on your point here. Are you suggesting that the delivery of military effect is something that should be provided by the private sector?
    No, my point is contrary to the post quoted, I found the 401(k) to be superior to Social Security and that there was not incentive for the military to lower costs. Even when contracted out, unless the branch spending the money has an incentive to spend less, they will spend every dollar allocated, even if the goods or services are not needed.

    My father used to work for a defense contractor and we could always tell when the contract was about to go into negotiations for the next phase - he and his co-workers would start working overtime to make sure that they spent every last cent of the present contract to justify asking for more on the next contract.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    tbright1965 wrote: »
    MeanderingMammal wrote: »
    tbright1965 wrote: »
    When I was in the military, people are rated based on the size of their kingdom. If an organization had money left over at the end of the fiscal year, they didn't return it for others to use. They spent it so they would get as much if not more the next fiscal year.

    I'm not entirely clear on your point here. Are you suggesting that the delivery of military effect is something that should be provided by the private sector?
    No, my point is contrary to the post quoted, I found the 401(k) to be superior to Social Security and that there was not incentive for the military to lower costs. Even when contracted out, unless the branch spending the money has an incentive to spend less, they will spend every dollar allocated, even if the goods or services are not needed.

    So the issue isn't with the delivery of military effect being a government function?

    I'd agree that the behaviours that incremental budgeting encourages are unhelpful, but that's an issue with the budgeting technique rather than public services.

    Zero based budgeting encourages its own bad behaviours, although in truth I think it's a more comprehensive approach to it.

  • tbright1965
    tbright1965 Posts: 852 Member
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    MeanderingMammal wrote: »
    tbright1965 wrote: »
    MeanderingMammal wrote: »
    tbright1965 wrote: »
    When I was in the military, people are rated based on the size of their kingdom. If an organization had money left over at the end of the fiscal year, they didn't return it for others to use. They spent it so they would get as much if not more the next fiscal year.

    I'm not entirely clear on your point here. Are you suggesting that the delivery of military effect is something that should be provided by the private sector?
    No, my point is contrary to the post quoted, I found the 401(k) to be superior to Social Security and that there was not incentive for the military to lower costs. Even when contracted out, unless the branch spending the money has an incentive to spend less, they will spend every dollar allocated, even if the goods or services are not needed.

    So the issue isn't with the delivery of military effect being a government function?

    I'd agree that the behaviours that incremental budgeting encourages are unhelpful, but that's an issue with the budgeting technique rather than public services.

    Zero based budgeting encourages its own bad behaviours, although in truth I think it's a more comprehensive approach to it.

    The issue is blind belief that either government or private sector is the best.

    Why not give people the choice? I.E. if one believes Social Security is better than a 401(k) let them VOLUNTARILY put their money in Social Security and live with the outcome. If others believe a 401(k) is the better option, instead of making them be part of Social Security (all or just the income security portion of FICA taxes) let them choose. Maybe they choose 0-100% of the 6.2% portion of their FICA taxes to go into SS and a similar choice for the employer's matching 6.2% "contribution."

    But just passing a law saying you must be part of this great plan we've developed may not be the best for all involved.

    I know I could be retired in my mid-50s had I had control of the 12.4% taken each year and immediately spent instead of modestly invested in index funds.

    That's a high-tech job that could be filled by another instead of me, if I had control over those funds.

    Instead, I'm forced into SS where not only must I contribute, but I'll only see 30% of my indexed monthly income s a benefit vs the worker who paid closer to the minimum who will get 90% of his indexed monthly income at full retirement age.

    It's a bad deal all the way around for me.

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