WeblogBahamas.com

Lessons in Freedom: Coercion and Laziness in the Health Care Debate

Tibor R. Machan

"Suppose back in the days of chattel slavery the masters could make out a pretty good case that they desperately needed the work of their slaves, that without that work they would be very hard up..."

When people have a strong urge to get something accomplished they cannot--or perhaps better put are unwilling to--do by themselves, they often insist that it must be done by the government. This is what has been happening with the whole health care/insurance fiasco. Yes, it is very desirable to be insured against medical mishap or disaster. Yes, many are uninsured, though not so many as the alarmists in the debate claim. And yes, those most alarmed aren't going to be able to afford to insure everyone they want to see insured. So, presto, government is urged to force everyone to contribute to the system whether or not this is a priority for them.

The Avett Brothers - Song of the week - November 2, 2009 - I and Love and You

Rick Lowe

Don't know where I heard this song, but I'm sure glad I did.

Check out The Avett Brothers web site here... and please make sure you buy some of their music.

Hope you enjoy I and Love and You from their recent CD by the same name.

Montagu Beach and the Ramp on East Bay Street, Nassau, Bahamas

Rick Lowe

One of the front page stories in yesterday's Nassau Guardian informs us that "A consensus that the Montagu Beach area should be preserved as a recreational area, and that conditions experienced by vendors at the site are unfair to the vendors..."

This of course is at the site where Bahamians buy seafood and fruit and vegetables from the fishermen and other vendors opposite the worlds largest outdoor toilet, the intersection of East Bay Street and the Village Road extension.

Bahamas Government debates a "Free" Prescription Drug Plan

Rick Lowe

Well the FNM, not to be out done by the PLP, has taken the first step toward socialised medicine.

We're told the comprehensive plan the PLP had proposed before they were voted out of office in 2007 was found by all concerned to be far too ambitious, and was bound to fail.

So the FNM is introducing socialised medicine, one step at a time. Their first step is a free drug plan that has been passed in the House of Assembly and is now before the Senate for approval.

Of course, this plan includes price controls and a government take over of the purchasing of the 93 drugs identified for this scheme through a new government tendering agency and several other government committees to oversee the programme.

To paraphrase Professor Don Boudreaux from over at Cafe Hayek:

(1) intentions are not results, and (2) to oppose a government program is not necessarily to object to the intentions stated by that program's advocates.

The FNM and PLP clearly believe that (1) if government intends for Bahamians to have universal health coverage, then the result will be that Bahamians actually GET universal health coverage, and (2) anyone who opposes a government program promising universal health coverage is a person who objects to Bahamians actually getting universal health coverage.

A couple friends knocked me down recently for recommending vouchers to take care of the poor that need help rather than this idea that has failed throughout the world. I suggested they appear to support this government programme after years of working on committees dealing with decades of government failure in education and other areas.

Go figure!

Bahamas Government Out of Touch With The People!

Jerome Pinder

The Tribune reported today on a non-scientific poll conducted by the Worker's Party on whom participants would vote for as Leader (Perry Christie or Hubert Ingraham) if an election were held today.

What is not so surprising about this poll, is that it matches the everyday comments you here from individuals with regards to the Government, Opposition and Politicians in General. Perception they say is reality, and it would appear from perception that the current Government, a once Government of the Sunshine and of the People, has lost touch with the electorate.

Lessons in Freedom: Property Rights are Human Rights

Tibor R. Machan

A sad confusion that has once again made its way into general circulation is that the right to private property is a mere invention designed to legitimate greed and obscene riches. Actually, this is like claiming that the right to life is a mere invention designed to legitimate crude selfishness and unrestrained personal ambition. And actually there is something to this but nothing insidious, nothing bad in the end.

“Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” Picewell Forbes Reprise

The following post is a letter to the Editor of The Tribune  dated October 22, 2009.

Ian Mabon

Madness, what else could account for the utterance of the MP for south Andros during convention while the matter was still under deliberation?

“Pleasant is a free woman! God still reigns PLP’s"

These from the mouth of a former senior newscaster who should definitely know better and whose statements could easily be construed as contempt of court, thank heaven for the intervention of senior Justice Allen. Sanity prevails, but at what cost?

Not So Unequal, After All

Rick Lowe

I subscribe to Forbes magazine and also get their daily e-mail notification. Today the article with the title of this blog piqued my interest as income inequality is a political football in the US, and sometimes it's offered up here at home.

However, Professor Robert Gordon has released a paper titled Has the Rise in American Inequality Been Exaggerated (pdf) that might raise some hackles according to Brian S. Westbury and Robert Stein.

Truth and demagoguery in the income-inequality debate.

When it comes to income inequality, conventional wisdom says that it's been getting worse for a long time. Productivity is going up, but middle-class incomes are stagnating. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. You've heard it over and over again. Many free-market economists have argued against the conventional wisdom, only to be dismissed as out of touch. But an incredible new paper from Northwestern Professor Robert Gordon, a pillar of the "mainstream" academic establishment, says maybe they are right and have been for a long time. [More...]

I hope you enjoy it too.

Lessons in Freedom: Magical Wishing

Tibor R. Machan

"...as if people who move to Washington and other centers of regulatory power cannot err and all their oversight will be pure and wise..."

Whenever I encounter the sentiment expressed in the following, I get pretty pessimistic about how today's commentators tend to think: "Goodman [the author of a free market bashing book, Past Due (Henry Holt, 2009)], a fair-minded reporter and a clear writer, demonstrates how both Bernake and Summers, along with most other major economists and Wall Street plutocrats of the past two decades, became entranced by the Greenspan-Chicago School notion that financial institutions can be trusted to police one another in the absence of rigorous government oversight...." (NYTimes Book Review, 10/11/09, p. 17)  Just consider that while the reviewer, the†Business Week managing editor Paul M. Barrett, shares Goodman's severe dislike of free markets and those who consider it, or whatever bits and pieces of it exist, a promising instrument for dealing with the country's economy, he has complete faith in "rigorous government oversight."

The Bahamas Colonial Past...

Rick Lowe

In a recent blog by Nicolette Bethel over at Blogworld entitled On Holding One Other in Contempt she starts out by saying:

"There’s an affliction that strikes countries whose histories come out of colonialism. It’s one of the legacies that dangles on, like a dying but not-quite-dead jellyfish, wrapping its tentacles over whatever it can reach, spreading its venom to newer and newer generations. It’s the sense that what happens in your space of the world, what takes place in your territory, is not quite real. It isn’t really happening to proper people. What is real, or important, or of anything significance at all, happens Over There — in the Real World, where Real People Live. Where we inhabit are the realms of the shadow people." [More...]

Your not so humble blogger left the following comment:

I’m often left bewildered why colonialism is still blamed for this stuff after all these years. Surely we only have ourselves to blame at this stage of the game (42 years of self rule…3 or 4 generations)? What am I missing?

Can our WeblogBahamas visitors provide an answer?