Which situation is more desirable?

A - poorest people make $10/yr and richest make $15/yr, with relatively low Gini number

B - poorest people make $100/yr and richest make $3,000/yr, with relatively high Gini number

Nobody can argue that there is huge wealth inequality in this country. The reasons for its creation are the cause for concern.. just the simple fact that we don't live in an egalitarian state is not cause for concern.

We can't tax our way to utopia. We can't regulate our way to utopia.

We should implement:
- term limits
- "loser pays" court system
- flat consumption tax (where the poor get a refund based on taxes that a subsistance market basket would have cost them in sales taxes)
- competing currencies (why should it be illegal for me to use other forms of currency if I don't want to put my faith in a collapsing dollar?)
- a policy of non-govt intervention in the economy (failing banks or companies MUST be allowed to fail in order to allow market corrections to take place)
- no minimum wage (this law discriminates agains low-skilled workers, plain and simple)
- drastic welfare reform (when Denmark changed its unemployment compensation length from 5yrs to 4yrs....what do ya know? the length of unemployment shrunk by 1 year)

We should continue to:
- regulate environmental issues
- make investments in public infrastructure (but only once we can pay for it)

The "rich" already pay the vast majority of taxes in this country. Just asking them to pay more is not how you solve this problem of govt/big business collusion.

This is obviously a topic that can't be covered in one short blog, but I just can't help speaking out at the implied notion that we can just tax rich people more and that will solve our problems. Govt interference in the market is what has led to this wealth inequality. MORE govt interference in the market will not make it better.

Ha:) Our Federal Reserve system has created a monopoly money effect in both meanings of the word:

- Federal Reserve notes will soon have the same value as the board game currency

- Federal Reserve has a monopoly on what can legally be used as currency

You might want to read the WP’s Richard Cohen this morning for a well-written perspective on this issue.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-downwardly-mobile-nation/2011/09/19/gIQAezgagK_story.html

Thanks for posting this... discussing economic issues with the typical set of reactionaries around here, I feel like I'm going insane. Why a majority of Americans seem okay with what is essentially a regressive tax system that is benefitting a very small, very priviledged class of people is beyond me.

I am also confounded by the number of my fellow officers who rail against the government and mention how 'everyone knows the government cannot do anything right.' Which makes me wonder why they then chose to work for the largest government organization in the world...

Cheers,

- HJ

Yes, I understand everything is connected but I thought this blog concentrated on national defense issues?

Perhaps the blog should be renamed, at least until after the election, "The Best Defense for a Failed Presidency That The Blog Author Seems to Want To Re-Elect By Using The Blog To Fight The Democratic Plank Against The Republican Plank"?

Just Kidding... (I think)...

The Federal Govt can do many things right. It can protect us from foreign military invastions. It can protect the environment. It can protect your freedom of speech, assembly, religion, etc. It can regulate a court system.

But when it gets involved in the economy (essentially picking winners and losers) it has a poor track record.

I volunteered to work for a government agency. Civilian consumers do not volunteer to be a part of a regulated economy.

I find it funny that the media constantly says, "Buffet pays less in taxes than his secretary." Obviously they mean lower tax rate, but that's not what most are actually saying. Words mean something. When they say that, they are wrong. He pays something like 6 or 7 million in taxes, which is far more than his secretary pays. His corporation is already hit with taxes before the money gets to him. Again, this is not just as simple as "tax rich people more."

I am equally confounded by people that don't recognize the inherit flaws of government or who somehow think they shouldn't speak out against them?

Of course the grasshoppers (who probably consider themselves ants, per Aesop) consider it fine. It has to be fine. If it is not fine, then something is wrong with the ideology. Nothing can be wrong with the ideology. It has to be the people.

You've got a thirty to forty year class campaign to redistribute wealth upwards, from the actual creators of it to financiers. It has been systematic, and it has been wildly successful. When the supposedly clever small businessman elects free trade globalists you can see how successful it has been.

Problem is: it hasn't lived up to its billings. A rising tide lifts all boats -- provided they all have enough anchor line. What we have seen since the 80's is a kind of faux playing out of slack (via cheap credit).

Another problem: the propaganda efforts have been so successful that half of the half of the country that pays any attention at all want to believe that Ronald Reagan somehow represented a restoration of the ideals of the Founding Fathers, who are presented as corporate-friendly free-marketeers. And under no circumstances can these guys be implicated in a failure of anything -- at that point you're monkeying around with our Foundation Mythology, which is verboten. Plato called this sort of thing "noble lying." Fine, until the truth comes out. Then suddenly it's Ignoble Horseshit.

If you have been promoting this line for decades you are going to have a hard time admitting to yourself that you've been played. That's the pride angle. So when you are forced to acknowledge that the ideology hasn't delivered as promised, the problem has to be that people haven't implemented the ideology full enough. Or they are just lazy.

Demands for increased Ideological purity is the last refuge of every failed ideologue. And the simpler, the better.

Q. How does this relate to National Security?
A. less butter at home will mean less willingness to use guns abroad.

Here's something from my favorite Naked Capitalist, Yves Smith. The nutshell here seems to be that the more you've redistributed wealth upwards and into fewer hands, the more likely you are to have a big debt problem:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/income-inequality-produces-indebtedness-and-global-imbalances.html

Government intervention in the economy = wealth redistribution (mostly upwards) = bad news for everyone

Huckleberry is correct that rich people have been the biggest benefactors of wealth redistribution.. welfare for the rich. But taxing them more will not help the problem or (more importantly) help the debt problem. You've all seen the numbers right?

The byzantine tax code can be navigated by the super rich. The regulations can get waived or modified for you if you are super rich, etc, etc.

The Federal Government needs to just step back and conduct a tactical withdrawal from the economy and let the market do what it does best: create wealth for everyone. People get hurt in a free market, but you know what? People are certainly getting screwed in the state-run economy we have now aren't they? People learn best from failure (see: infinite amount of leadership books on the subject).

This obsession with just taxing rich people more will not fix anything. The government will most likely waste the extra revenue anyway, or create another bubble.

There is a very simple reason for why 50% of filers allegedly pay no net federal income tax:

THEY HAVE NO MONEY*.

The very wealthy contribute a disproportionate, and growing, slice of the overall pie, but:

THEIR SLICE OF THE PIE IS GROWING EVEN FASTER.

Am I wrong? Is there a simpler way to tell this story?
___________

(* = they control a small, and shrinking, portion of the nation's wealth, while paying payroll, sales and real estate taxes from an income that is shrinking in real terms.)

RCC- With regards to your suggestion of term limits on politicians, I have to disagree with you. As a defense blog that counts many active/retired servicemen as readers, I think many can appreciate institutional memory and experience. Congress isn't a place that you master in a day (most freshmen don't know what they are doing their whole first term). Legislation is complex and much of the time it requires senior members, although I wish I could call more of them statesmen, who intimately understand the issues and focus debate. Senior members also tend to work across the aisle better. Without them, Congress would become more unstable (which is a bad environment for busniess). Furthermore, with term limits, the power would shift to staffers and ,more likely, lobbyists. They would have all the knowledge of both the issues and the institution. I don't think that you want unelected people having all the power.

I would suggest that gerrymandering and redistricting are what needs to be controlled. Districts should be designed to make geographic sense. They should promote, when possible, competitive elections. This coupled with campaign finance reform would do more to fix the political landscape of this country than term limits.

As for the rich, businesses and corporations are amoral. They are driven by profit. No one is saying the rich are evil. The problem is that they are making decisions which are profitable in the short term but bear huge second order societal costs. Turning record profit margins while reducing pay and benefits creates people who require more public assistance (something we all bear the burden of). At least Henry Ford paid his workers so they could buy his products. Furthermore, when the divide between haves and have nots becomes wider it becomes harder to bridge. This year SAT scores were among the lowest average on record. At the same time it had the largest number of students scoring in the highest range. Because school funding and performance are often based on property taxes, we can see that there is a bifurcation occuring even sooner in the lives of Americans. Maybe it shouldn't be the government's role to "redistribute" wealth but I'd like to believe that equality of opportunities should be shared as evenly as possible. The government regulated the robber barrons and they at least voluntarily invested their immense wealth at home (something I don't see much of today).

This leads to the point of "why is this on a defense blog?". Everyone can understand the budget ramifications for defense in an environment of decreased spending and revenue. However, I am more concerned about future decision/policy making. I fear that the haves will become increasingly isolated from the impacts of their decisions. There will be fewer educated voters to hold them accountable and less personal stake in future diplomatic and defense decisions. Without skin in the game people tend to make more rash decisions.

/Sorry for the long post.

The people who own America—The Owners—have decided that you no longer count. They are no longer going to spend their hard-earned money, in the form of taxes and wages, on your well-being, on your health, on your retirement, on your children’s education, on the roads you use, on the safety of the food you eat, on the cleanliness of the very air you breathe. You have been written off except as a source of cheap, dumb labor and as the parents of a new generation of cheaper, dumber labor.

The Owners will allow your tax money to be spent only on weapons, and to train and transport users of weapons. If your sons and daughters are lucky, they will be allowed, in return for a few baubles and ribbons—and the meaningless nickname “Hero”—to enlist as soldiers whose perpetual work it will be to steal from the rest of the world. The Owners’ sons, of course, are too precious to be put at such risk.

Which part of this isn’t plain enough for you to see with your own eyes? Today. Right Now.

You used to be honored with the title "citizen". Now your title is "ATM".

I'll start with wage stagnation that Tom mentions. This is mostly due to two things: mass entry of women into the workforce since the 70s and free trade agreements. Women workers increased the US labor supply pool drastically and FTAs did the same, except with much cheaper labor, looser environmental regs, low worker rights, etc. Supply outstrips demand (especially at US worker wages) and wages stagnate.

@RIFLE COMPANY COMMANDER, I usually mostly agree with you, but not here on economic fixes. For one, removing minimum wage would be a disaster. Check for a WikiLeaks article where Hanes sought out the state department to put pressure on Haiti gov't to not raise their minimum wage to 61 cents an hour...and instead to only 31 cents an hour. They would've paid $15M more per year to their 25,000 garment workers out of their $220M yearly profits and that was too much for them. What would prevent that from happening here? Worker riots reminiscent of the old union days?

There are many structural problems with the US economy: Politibusiness, disadvantageous FTAs, tax codes, medical costs, no response to foreign neomercantilism, not being able to enforce patents internationally, lack of gov't strategic vision. I'm sure there are more to be named.

While people argue over tax policy, ie, should the rich pay more, the real culprits in the decline of the middle class get a pass. Immigration, trade policy, globalization and a legal system that disproportionately benefits the elites have far more to do with it than tax policy.

This from the BBC yesterday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14978876

It's pretty telling when a country that has institutionalized elitism suggests there is a problem here in the U.S.

A few quick questions for the elites. Do you really think your gated community is going to protect you from pissed off rednecks with nothing left to lose, who are also adept at using heavy equipment, and probably have military experience to boot? Are you really counting on that cop, whose brother is the pissed off redneck, to protect you once the riots start? What happens when a mass of people start to realize that the promise of America, the upward mobility, the idea that people can improve their lot in life, is nothing more than a myth and the system is so hopelessly stacked against the average man that the elite controlled media have to continuously use the example of Bill Gates (who went to Harvard) as a shiny example of what is possible? Five or ten or a hundred out of three hundred million doesn't cut it.

I would suggest the elites need to pull their collective heads out of their asses before some bright college educated kids, who can't find good jobs, start using those pissed off rednecks to change the equation. I don't think you realize just how many really angry people there are out here. The system has become too unbalanced and it doesn't take a engineer to figure out what eventually happens in an unbalanced system.

Many of the people who have commented today have interesting points of view and some very valid observations but there is desperate need on this forum for some folks to take a course in Macro Economics 101.

Ideological right wing Republicans who seem destined to rule come next year will discover that cutting taxes on incomes that people don’t have is hardly a formula for economic growth. Nor is cutting government spending going to employ many people. Nor is taking entitlement dollars out of the hands of people who spend those dollars on day-to-day life. But then that is to be expected from a party whose audiences applaud the idea of letting people die who don’t have health insurance.

There is no way the United States or indeed Europe can grow their way into a new prosperity by deficit reduction and austerity. Changing budget priorities is an option by moving money from for instance the DOD to other parts of the economy but it still requires either tax revenues or deficit financing. Since deficit financing has become the great bugaboo of late and increased taxes are verboten something has got to give?

The GOP the prime defender of entrenched greed in this country say no new revenue especially from the pockets of people that possess most of the wealth even if it’s inherited. So what to do? Where is the money to come from for a renaissance of economic activity, waste fraud and abuse? Some would say the real waste fraud and abuse in government are the wars we are bungling in Iraq and Afghanistan and also putting on the tab gratis the Chinese.

Incidentally, large corporations in this country are flush with cash, don’t need to borrow and are generating respectable profit growth and often pay less in taxes as a percent than many people who post on Tom’s blog. And small businesses that have become the great white hope of Congress do not hire people they don’t need regardless of tax benefits since the cost of a new hire is always going to be higher than tax savings.

Also, much of what passes for small business is in this country are crappy low wage no benefit service jobs that are basically dead-end and impossible to support a family. The deep industrial infrastructure that for generations created employment for millions of Americans and their children has gone defunct as other nations close the education gap and offer lower wages. Tell me who has any ideas how to reverse that?

Unfortunately, I can’t say that the Democrats are anymore honest or inspiring which is of course why they likely will get thrown out on their ear next year. They in their cheap pork barrel interest group politics will reap what they have sown. Canada is looking better all the time, they are not perfect but not so self-destructive.

JPWREL,
Why the animosity against the GOP? It would seem you are almost partisan in most of your comments as of late. It was the Dems who set up Freddie and Fannie and pushed the banks to make the loans, with no thought of long term consequences, no admission that there is such a thing as human nature, i.e; greed in both the institutions that gave the loans and the individuals who get them. I get some of the angst at the GOP but the Dems answer of tax and regulate is not going to get us out of this economy either. The current administration practically does an end run around Congress to implement many of his regulations, where are cries against that? Against some of the things tacked onto the Franks-Dodd Bill that are just plain anti-business?

RCC,
I agree with a lot of your views on the economy, I tend to lean pro-business but I also know that businesses are run by people and I have little faith in the good nature of people. I want fewer regulations too but they would need to be replaced with something that kept people and their nature in check, longer sentences? Increase in SEC powers and size?
I think you lean libertarian if I am correct? I know I lean Libertarian but we both know that pure libertarianism becomes anarchy at a point. So, what do we do to keep those folks in check for the environment to keep it clean but still encourage energy production and R&D? What else do or can we do lower regulations and taxes and still keep the Wall Street Trading Companies and Banks in check? I am not sure all of your points would wash. I am really just curious on this. I would prefer to see stronger punishments in sentences and prefer to just see the SEC and other groups of the like have more assets and enforcement be made real verse anti-business regulations.

@Stang

"Food safety" - Still a huge problem. Check the FDA's website."-

Not really, if you want perfection it is a huge problem but in a country of almost 350 million they do pretty good.

"Education" - You're kidding right?"-

Yup, our education system sucks but we spend more than anyone else in the industrialized world but the Swiss, so money is not the answer, what is then in your view?

"Banks" - Financial crash of 2008? Ring a bell?"-

Yeah, but the Govt helped set that in motion, even more regulation will only hinder small businesses and hurt the economy. Why not just have better enforcement, the SEC is tiny and has little in the way of assets and actual law enforecment powers, why not just make them better and actually check and enforce the regulations on the books?

"Disaster Relief" - Katrina? Anything?"-

That is the result OF big gov't and just poor Civilian Leadership. The State refused to get the National Guard together for too long a time, the Feds have to get the OK from the State before they can go in unless they Federalize the Guard and no one wanted to pay for the Army Corps of Engineers to install the best safe guards in place to fight off a Hurricane of the level.

"People would not die in the street" - Happens everyday. There are so many homeless people here in Florida that municipalities now have to try and control the rampant panhandling on every street corner and traffic light."-

Almost 90% of them are either there because of Psych issues or Drugs and/or Alcohol addiction, will bet you a weeks check on that. Every town has a homeless shelter in some spot and I have yet to go one and find someone who did not end up in that category. Also, the number of "Vets" is insane, then you do some digging and again the huge majority of time they got kicked out of the service before they ended up there and that is if they were ever actually in the service. What are we gonna do for these folks? Institutionalize them? Most of them are there because the Dems and the GOP back in the 80's wanted to get them out of institutions, for different reasons but it was bi-partisan so would they put them back in?

"Life would be good" - It's nice that life is good for you. It's not so good for large segments of our society, and that segment is getting larger and larger."

Not really, I want things to get better too but adding on regulation and more taxes, making the tax code even more complicated sure as heck is not going to cure it.

Last point to so many posters, where is all this anger at the rich coming from? What happened to the American who looked at the wealthy man as he drove by and said "I will be that man someday", now it seems we are most likely to ask the Government to investigate that wealthy man and how he got that money. Where is that American optimism instead of what often sounds like a conspiratorial mindset and that the fix is in and nefarious forces are behind the scenes?

You want to change this trend then get the money out of politics! Take the former politicians and DOD generals out of the lobby groups, change the policies from special interests to grass root efforts with public funded campaigns. Until then your just spinning your wheels!

..rule the world through

@ Tom Ricks,
I had a typo on one of my first sentences.. “Nobody can argue that there is ///NOT/// a huge wealth inequality in this country.” There certainly IS wealth inequality.

@ LUVMY91STANG,
Food – we are living in an era of the safest food available in the history of mankind. You will never weed out every single piece of bacteria. (side note: please tell me you don’t buy into the cult of the all-organic food craze). Even poor people (what is poor? Most “poor” people can still afford two color TVs) still have access to safe food. Restaurants WANT to make safe food because they know that if they don’t, they will LOSE customers. Bad reviews spread faster than food poisoning.

Education – no I’m not kidding. Have you ever taken a look at what a typical 8th grade curriculum consisted of in the late nineteenth century, before the Fed Govt got involved? We throw vast sums of money into the school system and it doesn’t do any good because we’ve tried to go out of our way to be egalitarian. In many states (maybe most—it might be a federal law for all I know), there is regulation that dictates that you MUST provide an opportunity for the kid to be educated regardless of how bad his/her behavior is. What happens, as you probably already know, is that the trouble maker is normally kicked out of the regular school and placed in the “bad kids” school. The problem is, that most of the alternative, “bad kid” schools are becoming too full to accept more kids and the states can’t tax their citizens enough to pay for more of them. So….the bad kids end up just staying in the regular school and adversely affect the education of the good kids. You could easily say, “just tax the wealthy more,” but a better solution is, “let parents keep their tax money or give them a voucher and let them pick which school their kid goes to.”

Banks – Yes it rings a bell. And it happened because of the Federal Govts involvement in the market. Bankers had numerous historical examples to look at and know that the Fed would bail them out. That knowledge leads to risky behavior that would otherwise not have taken place in an economy free of government intervention. Are you trying to make my points for me??

Disaster Relief – If the national guards had not been involved in military industrial adventurism then they probably would have been able to help out much more than they did. The Federal Govt incentivizes risky behavior here too… Through the National Flood Insurance, the Fed Govt provides below-market insurance to people living in dangerous, flood-prone areas. Why should I have to repeatedly pay for someone’s foolish decision to live near the ocean? (they can file over and over and over again) All of us are paying A LOT to rebuild rich people’s houses on the Atlantic right this moment because of our Fed Govt’s involvement in the economy.

Life would be good – There will always be heartache and misery somewhere. I’m saying that chaos and violence would not all of the sudden become the norm if the Fed Govt scaled back its operations to just: protect your Bill of Rights, regulate a court system, protect the environment, provide for the common defense, and provide sound currency (and the Federal Reserve does not count).

@ DMENDELS
“The constitution is a living document” ? Amendments are how it is supposed to evolve. The Federal Reserve, fiat money, undeclared wars, FEMA, etc, are example. Clearly the constitution has flaws. Chief among them are the “promote general welfare” and “regulate interstate commerce” clauses. I think even Hamilton would be rolling in his grave if he saw how those clauses have been exploited…just a guess.

@ JPWREL
“But then that is to be expected from a party whose audiences applaud the idea of letting people die who don’t have health insurance.” ? I hope you’re not including Ron Paul in that lot. He has been inaccurately quoted all over the media since last week’s debate.

I still don’t know how you ignore the effects of over regulation. Are you a business owner? I’m not. So I know that I have to do 10x times the research before I open my mouth on these subjects. Most of my extended family is in small business….and NONE of it from nepotism. They have to spend insane amounts of time ensuring they are not exposing themselves to a lawsuit or a government bureaucratic busybody.

“even if it’s inherited” ? isn’t the death tax back at 50%? I am fine with death tax. I think 50% is a bit much, but sure, I’ve got no problem with the state taking a portion of your money once you’re dead for the privilege of living in a prosperous country.

“The deep industrial infrastructure that for generations created employment for millions of Americans and their children has gone defunct as other nations close the education gap and offer lower wages. Tell me who has any ideas how to reverse that?” ? I’ve tried.. stop the endless regulations. Hong Kong? Singapore? They didn’t become 1st world countries due to extensive government regulations.

@ Eric Stratton III,
I can totally relate to your questions of how to balance libertarian ideas with the realities of the world. I’ve come to that bridge, and I’ve crossed it. You’re afraid of anarchy? But by what definition? Today, anarchy means chaos and no rule of law. But it didn’t always mean that. It HAS meant the absence of centralized government authority or “minimal” government authority. Only a crazy person would advocate the absence of the rule of law. Libertarianism does not mean there shouldn’t be laws. It’s a question of WHO is providing the laws.

You obviously can’t jump from the current system to a state of pure libertarianism overnight or even in one generation. But it should be a consistent goal. Even though this country isn’t necessarily headed that way, over all the world is I think. Self-Government will be the politics of the future. You are all smart people right? You’re capable of making judgments by yourself? Do you not think you’re fellow man is as capable as you?

Environment- Govt SHOULD protect the environment. That’s a valid role for it to do. The govt could use property rights to do this more efficiently than all the regulations it uses, but oh well.. (Ron Paul talks about this a lot, for those that don’t mind listening to an old man that knows a thing or two about the world)

Wall Street / Banks – The Federal Govt’s intervention in the market is what has allowed and encouraged the risky behavior of Wall Street. The fact that the government bailed them out is hideous. If you reward bad behavior, you get more of it. Also, the world’s experiment with fake money (fiat) is reaching a critical point. Real money (based on a tangible commodity) would greatly hamper banks ability to fraudulently advertise their real values. Critics argue a number of things against commodity-based money, chief among them is that it would reduce the amount of credit available. Maybe that’s a GOOD thing. People and businesses should have a real solid business idea before borrowing money from someone else. Too much credit and borrowing leads to mal-investment and market bubbles.

R&D- Why do things cost so much to research? Regulations. Why did there used to be dozens of companies that researched vaccines and now there’s only a handful. Regulations and the threat of lawsuits have made it cost-prohibitive. Those regulations might have saved X amount of lives, but they almost certainly cost many, many more lives by delaying the invention of good vaccine.

I can suggest some sources to look into if you want to really see if this whole “libertarian thing” is crazy or not: Reason Magazine, John Stossel, The Cato Institute, The Mises Institute, F. Hayek, H.L. Menken, Ron Paul, Penn Jillete’s old Showtime show, and LewRockwell.com (but beware of some of Lew’s crazy conspiracy writers and weirdos…) The conventional wisdom that is on the media is not the only ticket in town.

Join them, and they will complete your training! …and you bring order to the market without needing regulations and taxes!

Now can we talk about social issues? Or Engagement Area Development? (I’ve got an OPD I’m pitching soon and I’m looking for some current stuff to throw in there from OEF… platoon-size stuff) ?

Education- I never pretended it wasn’t broke. I’m saying if the Fed Govt got out of the business it would probably get better. I know that’s counter-intuitive, but much of life is.

“Used to be, someone could work hard and smart and have a middle class lifestyle, but the middle class is being eviscerated”
--? It is not the strongest of the species that survive, but the most adaptable to change. I don’t say that to be rude, I’m just saying that pointing to the past and expecting it to occur again is not a recipe for success. May I ask if you business was involved with the Fed Govt? Just curious.

You and I both deserve to be able to use whatever currency we choose. We should not be limited to only using U.S. Federal Reserve Notes. We have not explored that subject enough, either in the public media or on this blog.

So... Do you think that situation is good or bad (or neutral) for society? What is your opinion? (I'm talking about $300mil costs for drug trials)

Why should we be forced to accept the judgement of the Federal Govt on these matters? Why shouldn't I be allowed to make my own decisions when it comes to trying new vaccines? If the FDA ceased it's interference, almost overnight a robust industry of rating services would spring up to tale there place. Or...FDA could just continue to rate the drugs and people could be free to choose whether or not they try a drug that has not been "FDA approved." When you are sick and dying, you should not have to wait on the judgement of some government bureaucracy to allow you to try something or not.

Just another example of the perils of accepting government intervention in the market.

Most of the readers of this blog seem to readily accept "mission command" philosophy with open arms....do they not see the parallels when it comes to individual consumers making their own decisions in a complex world? The world is too complicated and constanstly changing for a Federal Govt to be able to push all the right buttons and turn all the right levers.

I've read that the Mayo guy that started that clinic with his brother was not even a licensed doctor...

If I invest a dollar in cash in a company I pay 15% tax, if I invest a dollar in sweat equity and/or brain power in the same company I pay as high as 35% tax. Makes no since to me