Obamacare's Looming Premium Hikes

[SteveM4A1]

Well I saw more than a 500% increase in my premium...not too bad

 

[IndyDave1776]

This is not necessarily a libertarian ideal. Many libertarians would disagree with me on this. The question is not whether property should or should not be protected. The question is whether or not an idea is morally equivalent to physical property once you've shared it with someone else.

Supporting the free market, free of regulation is a libertarian ideal. My beef with Doug was his conclusion that a negative outcome was caused by not enough government.




Please prove the bolded statement, because I strongly disagree. Mankind has been thinking, creating, innovating and inventing since our very creation. Imaginary property laws are relatively recent.



Yes we certainly have, and nobody ever made a convincing argument that intellectual property is morally equivalent to physical property. I poked a billion holes in it. It never has and never will be treated like physical property.



First of all, that is not a 'libertarian' argument.

Secondly, if you can't keep your patent from being infringed before your product hits the shelf then you're doing something wrong. Physical property rights and contract law still apply. Use them to keep your inventions secret until you produce the item. If someone violates your physical property rights or violates a contractual obligation to duplicate your idea then they can and should be prosectued.

Ok, let's see...

1. Patent law turns on the notion of sharing an idea conditionally, i.e., sharing it in return for a monopoly on the idea for a limited time. Throughout history, there have been times when great minds produced great ideas that never made an impact because of the lack of any incentive for sharing. A reasonable patent law would most likely have changed that, and our founders recognized that fact, and the underlying purpose was to advance our society by making it beneficial for such things to see the light of day rather than joining Leonardo daVinci's notebooks which, while full of really neat ideas, in practice never amounted to more than mental masturbation.

2. Why do you consider your physical property yours? A socialist doesn't? My guess is that you consider it yours because you invested the time, resources, and manual work necessary to either construct or acquire it. Why is your work, say building a wagon, more real than my work spending hours on end developing an idea with drawings on paper, more endless hours constructing and testing prototypes, more hours rectifying defects that I discover, and finally after several cycles of this, having a working product?

3. You seem to have overlooked that spying and hacking are impacted in no way whatsoever by your highly-touted contract law and physical property rights.

 

[steveh_131]

Miles apart are we on this. I support the idea of the government protecting my rights to fruits of my labor -- whether that's building something physical, monetarily, or something intellectual.

Everybody wants to equate physical property with intellectual property. It is not equal, no matter how many times you claim it is. If it is equal, and you support current patent law, then you must also support an expiration date on your physical property rights - correct? Your land... should we say 20 years, then it's fair game?

Patent law turns on the notion of sharing an idea conditionally, i.e., sharing it in return for a monopoly on the idea for a limited time. Throughout history, there have been times when great minds produced great ideas that never made an impact because of the lack of any incentive for sharing. A reasonable patent law would most likely have changed that, and our founders recognized that fact, and the underlying purpose was to advance our society by making it beneficial for such things to see the light of day rather than joining Leonardo daVinci's notebooks which, while full of really neat ideas, in practice never amounted to more than mental masturbation.

Please provide a specific example of a great idea that never made an impact because there were no patent laws.

Why do you consider your physical property yours? A socialist doesn't? My guess is that you consider it yours because you invested the time, resources, and manual work necessary to either construct or acquire it. Why is your work, say building a wagon, more real than my work spending hours on end developing an idea with drawings on paper, more endless hours constructing and testing prototypes, more hours rectifying defects that I discover, and finally after several cycles of this, having a working product?

The work is real. The property rights are not. They are a fictional construct.

If your imaginary property rights are equivalent to my physical property rights, does that mean that the physical wagon that I built becomes 'public domain' after a few years?

You seem to have overlooked that spying and hacking are impacted in no way whatsoever by your highly-touted contract law and physical property rights.

Not true. Hacking into someone's computer system is a violation of their property rights. Trespassing on someone's property to gain intel is also a violation of their property rights. Both are just as illegal as a patent violation.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Everybody wants to equate physical property with intellectual property. It is not equal, no matter how many times you claim it is. If it is equal, and you support current patent law, then you must also support an expiration date on your physical property rights - correct? Your land... should we say 20 years, then it's fair game?

I never said they were identically equal. I said I agreed they should be protected. We can argue whether 20 years is too much or too little. The Constitution allows us to figure that out and adjust.

Rather than the false equivalency you demand I accept, I submit the founders recognized that, at some point, ideas should be available to everyone (like how to build a fire, using a sail to propel a ship, the printing press, bifocal glasses, etc.) but only after the person(s) that came up with it have an opportunity to profit from their work.

 

[steveh_131]

Rather than the false equivalency you demand I accept, I submit the founders recognized that, at some point, ideas should be available to everyone (like how to build a fire, using a sail to propel a ship, the printing press, bifocal glasses, etc.) but only after the person(s) that came up with it have an opportunity to profit from their work.

Why?

Why should the fruits of my labor be no longer protected after an arbitrary length of time? Should the fruits of my labor be shared with the public for the 'common good'?

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Why?

Why should the fruits of my labor be no longer protected after an arbitrary length of time? Should the fruits of my labor be shared with the public for the 'common good'?

I guess they were only 80% libertarian.

 

[steveh_131]

I guess they were only 80% libertarian.

I guess that makes you 20% communist.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

I guess that makes you 20% communist.

Statist...in libertarian parlance.

ETA: But I like to think of myself 100% Constitutionalist. However much happens to overlap with libertarianism, so be it.

 

[steveh_131]

Statist...in libertarian parlance.

No... dissolving property rights for the sake of the common good... I'm sticking with communist.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

No... dissolving property rights for the sake of the common good... I'm sticking with communist.

If it makes you feel better.

 

[Libertarian01]

Steveh_131,

This notion of a "no rules" free market is pure fantasy-land. It has NEVER existed in any society, anywhere on the planet earth at ANY time.

The Code of Hammurabi had mercantile rules. The ancient Greeks, Persians, Sumerians had some rules on trade. Hell, even the Goths and Huns had cultural rules on trade that could be arbitrated by the chief/king/elder.

There will always be a need for a basic core of rules to guide and govern modern mercantilism. If nothing else, agreed upon definitions of terms, weights, and so forth.

This is where I do differ from the "pure" Libertarian. For you see, I want to see progress that can work, not some fantasy land never before achieved perfect society living in harmony. I'll save those dead experiments for the history books where each and every one fell apart.

If you are so free market you have the choice to exercise it in many ways. Try this one: The next time you and a loved one are in a major car accident, and you loved one is seriously injured with probable internal bleeding, tell the ambulance to wait while you call every ER within a 50 mile radius and find out what the cheapest rate is, OK? Tell them you're willing to wait on the phone while they look up costs for everything, including X-rays, 'cause in a bad accident you just know your loved one will need X-rays. Heck, you may even need to take a day or two to get a really good deal. That is a free market, right?

Now if that ^^^ sounds stupid, it is because it is! It isn't just the need for a product like food or shelter, but TIME is critical when it comes to certain medical treatments, and the time pressure is external and uncontrollable. Not all medical care can wait, which is why I say the "free market" doesn't apply to all of it, due to the simple nature of the time need.

The free market, is for me, the least amount of government intrusion with the most amount of trade and productivity. It is NOT an "on or off" switch, but rather near the intersection of two (2) lines on a graph, neither of which is a zero (0). That includes regulations.

I have never claimed Libertarian "purity." I want to move the needle down on government regulations and intrusions, but not to "off."

Regards,

Doug

 

[IndyDave1776]

Everybody wants to equate physical property with intellectual property. It is not equal, no matter how many times you claim it is. If it is equal, and you support current patent law, then you must also support an expiration date on your physical property rights - correct? Your land... should we say 20 years, then it's fair game?



Please provide a specific example of a great idea that never made an impact because there were no patent laws.



The work is real. The property rights are not. They are a fictional construct.

If your imaginary property rights are equivalent to my physical property rights, does that mean that the physical wagon that I built becomes 'public domain' after a few years?





Not true. Hacking into someone's computer system is a violation of their property rights. Trespassing on someone's property to gain intel is also a violation of their property rights. Both are just as illegal as a patent violation.

Never can be a harsh word. How may history have been different had daVinci been motivated to put a little more work into the internal combustion engine. It was discovered that he had worked out everything but the ignition system. Even if he could't get that, the same technology could have been applied to steam, or as an air compressor, both of which have significant implications, especially had they been introduced at a time we would consider historically anomalous.
Why not? My work ceases to be my property as soon as I get finished working on it, so why should yours not? What is the foundation upon which you base your claim that your wagon is your property? Oh, and our socialist neighbor would argue that my invention and your wagon are both public property upon completion. What are you going to say to him?

OK, even if spying and hacking are illegal at face value, what is anyone going to do about it? How do I recover any value for someone that by your standard of law is in the public domain the instant it sees the light of day? How do you put a cash value on that? How is prison time for them going to help me? How can they even be said to have materially harmed me by the release of information that you say I don't even own rights to in the first place?

 

[IndyDave1776]

Why?

Why should the fruits of my labor be no longer protected after an arbitrary length of time? Should the fruits of my labor be shared with the public for the 'common good'?

I would hold this up as true political compromise of a sort we never see. You take two divergent positions and find a middle ground that works for everyone well enough. The time of absolute protection is offered in exchange for later making the idea available to the society in general. I would point out that this compromise offers more to everyone then either extreme position would give anyone.

 

[steveh_131]

This notion of a "no rules" free market is pure fantasy-land. It has NEVER existed in any society, anywhere on the planet earth at ANY time.

"No rules" is anarchy. Enforced property rights and contract law is a free market. They are not the same thing. I've corrected you on this before.

This is where I do differ from the "pure" Libertarian. For you see, I want to see progress that can work, not some fantasy land never before achieved perfect society living in harmony. I'll save those dead experiments for the history books where each and every one fell apart.

If libertarianism is a 'dead experiment' in your eyes then you should stop calling yourself one.

If you are so free market you have the choice to exercise it in many ways. Try this one: The next time you and a loved one are in a major car accident, and you loved one is seriously injured with probable internal bleeding, tell the ambulance to wait while you call every ER within a 50 mile radius and find out what the cheapest rate is, OK? Tell them you're willing to wait on the phone while they look up costs for everything, including X-rays, 'cause in a bad accident you just know your loved one will need X-rays. Heck, you may even need to take a day or two to get a really good deal. That is a free market, right?
Now if that ^^^ sounds stupid, it is because it is! It isn't just the need for a product like food or shelter, but TIME is critical when it comes to certain medical treatments, and the time pressure is external and uncontrollable. Not all medical care can wait, which is why I say the "free market" doesn't apply to all of it, due to the simple nature of the time need.

It only sounds stupid to you because you haven't given this enough thought. You're viewing an entire market sector from the perspective of a single transaction and you're missing the big picture.

Health insurance is a legitimate free market tool. Were it allowed to operate freely, it would do the legwork of forcing hospitals to compete with each other, both in price and quality, via contracts. A hospital charging $10,000 for an ER visit wouldn't get the contracts and would be forced to adjust their prices accordingly long before you or your loved one got in a car accident.

Never can be a harsh word. How may history have been different had daVinci been motivated to put a little more work into the internal combustion engine. It was discovered that he had worked out everything but the ignition system. Even if he could't get that, the same technology could have been applied to steam, or as an air compressor, both of which have significant implications, especially had they been introduced at a time we would consider historically anomalous.

You think that he spent a bunch of time and energy dreaming up contraptions, and the only thing stopping him from spending more time building them was the absence of patent laws?

Are you really going to argue that nobody invented things until the patent system was created?

You might find this interesting: Da Vinci purposely included design flaws in his sketches so that his contraptions wouldn't function as designed. He found an interesting way to protect his ideas without government intervention - and even more interesting to note that Italy did have patents during his lifetime, and he never utilized them.

Why not? My work ceases to be my property as soon as I get finished working on it, so why should yours not? What is the foundation upon which you base your claim that your wagon is your property?

Because if you take my wagon from me, I no longer have that wagon. I have zero wagons. If I read a book that you wrote, you still have your book. You still have the fruits of your labor in your hand.

What you want isn't protection of that property. You want some sort of government guarantee that your poor business model will bring you income. That you shouldn't have to take steps to protect your ideas or find creative ways to monetize them.

OK, even if spying and hacking are illegal at face value, what is anyone going to do about it? How do I recover any value for someone that by your standard of law is in the public domain the instant it sees the light of day? How do you put a cash value on that? How is prison time for them going to help me? How can they even be said to have materially harmed me by the release of information that you say I don't even own rights to in the first place?

If somebody steals your car and wrecks it, how does prison time for them help you? It doesn't. That's life.

I would hold this up as true political compromise of a sort we never see. You take two divergent positions and find a middle ground that works for everyone well enough. The time of absolute protection is offered in exchange for later making the idea available to the society in general. I would point out that this compromise offers more to everyone then either extreme position would give anyone.

You would theorize that it offers more to everyone. I theorize that a truly free market would be more innovative. Neither of us know for sure, so let's not pretend that we do.

However, empirical evidence has illustrated time and again that government regulation does not spur innovation or the economy so at least I have that on my side.

 

[IndyDave1776]

You think that he spent a bunch of time and energy dreaming up contraptions, and the only thing stopping him from spending more time building them was the absence of patent laws?

Are you really going to argue that nobody invented things until the patent system was created?

You might find this interesting: Da Vinci purposely included design flaws in his sketches so that his contraptions wouldn't function as designed. He found an interesting way to protect his ideas without government intervention - and even more interesting to note that Italy did have patents during his lifetime, and he never utilized them.



Because if you take my wagon from me, I no longer have that wagon. I have zero wagons. If I read a book that you wrote, you still have your book. You still have the fruits of your labor in your hand.

What you want isn't protection of that property. You want some sort of government guarantee that your poor business model will bring you income. That you shouldn't have to take steps to protect your ideas or find creative ways to monetize them.



If somebody steals your car and wrecks it, how does prison time for them help you? It doesn't. That's life.



You would theorize that it offers more to everyone. I theorize that a truly free market would be more innovative. Neither of us know for sure, so let's not pretend that we do.

However, empirical evidence has illustrated time and again that government regulation does not spur innovation or the economy so at least I have that on my side.

Let's see...

1. DaVinci was notorious for taking an idea to somewhere between 90% and 95% developed, stopping, and moving on to something else. My guess is that if he had a viable incentive for doing so, he is much more likely to have brought more of them to completion. Some Italian cities did have patent laws, but nothing like ours, and since there was no unified political unit of 'Italy', the patent ended at city limits.

2. Your book example. If I am an author, why in the universe am I going to go to the incredible hassle of preparing a book for publication with no return on investment? If those are you terms, you won't ever see that book, nor will anyone else. Dark Ages, anyone?

3. How do you know I have a poor business model? If the guy up the street who can set up to produce thousands of my product per day can flood the market with them before I have managed to recover enough to acquire the resources to produce anything like those numbers, how does that suggest my business model is flawed. Under those conditions, once again, I would say **** on society and never tell a soul about the invention.

4. You may have a point about being able to conclusively prove the difference on an even measure, but I would offer that there is a reason why we take ongoing invention for granted today when throughout history, a significant invention per century was an achievement.

 

[steveh_131]

DaVinci was notorious for taking an idea to somewhere between 90% and 95% developed, stopping, and moving on to something else. My guess is that if he had a viable incentive for doing so, he is much more likely to have brought more of them to completion. Some Italian cities did have patent laws, but nothing like ours, and since there was no unified political unit of 'Italy', the patent ended at city limits.

Again, because nobody made money on an invention before patents came around?

Your book example. If I am an author, why in the universe am I going to go to the incredible hassle of preparing a book for publication with no return on investment? If those are you terms, you won't ever see that book, nor will anyone else. Dark Ages, anyone?

You should direct that question to the folks who publish their novels and short stories to the internet, for free. There are TONS of them. I've read quite a lot of excellent novels online.

Then I went and purchased a hard copy from them to support their writing and so that I'd have it around.

How do you know I have a poor business model? If the guy up the street who can set up to produce thousands of my product per day can flood the market with them before I have managed to recover enough to acquire the resources to produce anything like those numbers, how does that suggest my business model is flawed. Under those conditions, once again, I would say **** on society and never tell a soul about the invention.

If you can't figure out a way to properly monetize your effort without Big Brother then what differentiates you from the hard working McDonalds worker who thinks he deserves $15? I mean, he really does work that hard. Minimum wage, anyone?

If you don't have enough resources, go find some. Investors will back a strong idea. Use contracts to keep it private. People have been doing it since forever.

You may have a point about being able to conclusively prove the difference on an even measure, but I would offer that there is a reason why we take ongoing invention for granted today when throughout history, a significant invention per century was an achievement.

Yes, with all of our innovation standing on the shoulders of those who innovated before us. All we're doing is preventing people from standing on each other's shoulders to reach the next innovation.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Again, because nobody made money on an invention before patents came around?



You should direct that question to the folks who publish their novels and short stories to the internet, for free. There are TONS of them. I've read quite a lot of excellent novels online.

Then I went and purchased a hard copy from them to support their writing and so that I'd have it around.



If you can't figure out a way to properly monetize your effort without Big Brother then what differentiates you from the hard working McDonalds worker who thinks he deserves $15? I mean, he really does work that hard. Minimum wage, anyone?

If you don't have enough resources, go find some. Investors will back a strong idea. Use contracts to keep it private. People have been doing it since forever.



Yes, with all of our innovation standing on the shoulders of those who innovated before us. All we're doing is preventing people from standing on each other's shoulders to reach the next innovation.

I gotta give you credit, Steve. As mislead as you may be about this, you certainly are tenacious about it. Suppose you and your company spent 100's and 1000's of man-hours and maybe millions of dollars developing a product. And maybe something about the manufacturing of the product was new and unique enough to qualify for patent and/or copyright protections. But the time you go to market and get up and running, suppose a competitor takes a look at it and figures out how you built it. He sets up the process for cost, without all of the trial and error, pre-production tests, safety testing, and all of the other costs it took you to work through to get a working, reliable, process up and running and a product customers actually were clamoring to buy--are you really going to just shrug it off and chaulk it up to "thems the breaks"?

I maintain that protection of these rights are important. Without them, I'm not so sure the industrial revolution we saw start in the 1800's would have ever occured, especially at the exponential rate we saw in innovation into the 20th century. Intellectual property rights are no more imaginary than the right of real estate ownership. When you think about it, how is it even possible for a man or woman to say they own a chunk of land? A piece of God's creation that was here long before they were even born, will be here long after they're gone? In reality, we don't. We own certain rights to to it. Same with intellectual property. Thanks to the vision and work of our founders, I possess certain rights to my creation. Just like your right to real estate, it's not complete, universal, and without condition.

 

[steveh_131]

I gotta give you credit, Steve. As mislead as you may be about this, you certainly are tenacious about it. Suppose you and your company spent 100's and 1000's of man-hours and maybe millions of dollars developing a product. And maybe something about the manufacturing of the product was new and unique enough to qualify for patent and/or copyright protections. But the time you go to market and get up and running, suppose a competitor takes a look at it and figures out how you built it. He sets up the process for cost, without all of the trial and error, pre-production tests, safety testing, and all of the other costs it took you to work through to get a working, reliable, process up and running and a product customers actually were clamoring to buy--are you really going to just shrug it off and chaulk it up to "thems the breaks"?

As a matter of fact, my company deals exclusively in creating IP. This is all I do, create and design things. So I do have an idea of how all of this works.

Most technical innovation is not as easily duplicated as I think you are imagining. Much of the work that people do is designed for specific equipment in a specific place. You can't just copy and paste it.

On the other hand, we do design bits of software that make us more efficient and effective. Something that might cut our design time by 20%, giving us a competitive edge over the competition. We copyright this software, of course, but we also take steps to ensure it is kept in confidence. Security measures, contracts, etc.

If a competitor stole this software and made a bundle of money from it, they'd have to do a lot of illegal things to do so. And we can and should sue the crap out of them, claiming any profits they might gain. We don't need copyright or patent laws to do this.

I maintain that protection of these rights are important. Without them, I'm not so sure the industrial revolution we saw start in the 1800's would have ever occured, especially at the exponential rate we saw in innovation into the 20th century.

This is nothing but an assumption. You're assuming that government regulations were beneficial. Government regulation is almost never beneficial. Why just jump straight to the conclusion that it was, with no supporting evidence?

Intellectual property rights are no more imaginary than the right of real estate ownership. When you think about it, how is it even possible for a man or woman to say they own a chunk of land? A piece of God's creation that was here long before they were even born, will be here long after they're gone? In reality, we don't. We own certain rights to to it. Same with intellectual property. Thanks to the vision and work of our founders, I possess certain rights to my creation. Just like your right to real estate, it's not complete, universal, and without condition.

Let's take this back to base human nature. You and I would agree that morality is ingrained in us from creation. We know that stealing is wrong. If somebody built something with their own materials, and we took it from them, we would know it was wrong. No question about it. This basic moral code is ingrained in all of us, which is why a government that enforces this moral code can be beneficial.

What if someone told us a funny story and we went and told it to someone else. Would we feel natural pangs of guilt? That wasn't our story. We didn't take the time to craft it. We put zero effort into it. Was this immoral?

Of course we wouldn't, and of course it wasn't.

Physical property rights are a natural right. Intellectual property is not.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

As a matter of fact, my company deals exclusively in creating IP. This is all I do, create and design things. So I do have an idea of how all of this works.

Most technical innovation is not as easily duplicated as I think you are imagining. Much of the work that people do is designed for specific equipment in a specific place. You can't just copy and paste it.

On the other hand, we do design bits of software that make us more efficient and effective. Something that might cut our design time by 20%, giving us a competitive edge over the competition. We copyright this software, of course, but we also take steps to ensure it is kept in confidence. Security measures, contracts, etc.

....and government protection.

If a competitor stole this software and made a bundle of money from it, they'd have to do a lot of illegal things to do so. And we can and should sue the crap out of them, claiming any profits they might gain. We don't need copyright or patent laws to do this.

What would be your basis for a law suit? If there were no copyright/patent laws and because intellectual property is not real property, after all -- if somehow they copied your product, what would be your case against your new competitor be based upon?

This is nothing but an assumption. You're assuming that government regulations were beneficial. Government regulation is almost never beneficial. Why just jump straight to the conclusion that it was, with no supporting evidence?

Sure it is but the correlation is pretty strong. I'll not contend it was the only reason but you can't say it had nothing to do with it, either...unless you're making an assumption

Let's take this back to base human nature. You and I would agree that morality is ingrained in us from creation. We know that stealing is wrong. If somebody built something with their own materials, and we took it from them, we would know it was wrong. No question about it. This basic moral code is ingrained in all of us, which is why a government that enforces this moral code can be beneficial.

What if someone told us a funny story and we went and told it to someone else. Would we feel natural pangs of guilt? That wasn't our story. We didn't take the time to craft it. We put zero effort into it. Was this immoral?

Of course we wouldn't, and of course it wasn't.

Physical property rights are a natural right. Intellectual property is not.

Depends on degree and context. Suppose you heard that funny little story or maybe it was a little song from your cousin Jim. Now, suppose you were talking to a friend that happened to be in marketing and decided that story, song, (or maybe it was picture --whatever) would be the basis of an advertising campaign that turned out to be a smash hit. Since you gave that person the idea, would you now feel pangs of guilt in accepting a finder's fee or some other compensation when your cousin Jim was the one that created it? Yeah, you would. I would. I would, minimally give him half of the money because it was his idea--his valuable property.

 

[steveh_131]

....and government protection.

Yes, and unnecessary government protection.

What would be your basis for a law suit? If there were no copyright/patent laws and because intellectual property is not real property, after all -- if somehow they copied your product, what would be your case against your new competitor be based upon?

They would have to violate our physical property rights to gain access to it or violate a contract.

Sure it is but the correlation is pretty strong. I'll not contend it was the only reason but you can't say it had nothing to do with it, either...unless you're making an assumption

Agreed.

Depends on degree and context. Suppose you heard that funny little story or maybe it was a little song from your cousin Jim. Now, suppose you were talking to a friend that happened to be in marketing and decided that story, song, (or maybe it was picture --whatever) would be the basis of an advertising campaign that turned out to be a smash hit. Since you gave that person the idea, would you now feel pangs of guilt in accepting a finder's fee or some other compensation when your cousin Jim was the one that created it? Yeah, you would. I would. I would, minimally give him half of the money because it was his idea--his valuable property.

If he wanted to make money with his song then he should have done so. I contributed the effort and knowledge to monetize it, he did not. He lost nothing in this transaction, and I see no need for guilt.