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The Economist: Trading Places

Lafayette said:
There should not be any "problem" with Central or South American labor movements "north". It's a bad situation made worse by not managing it properly. But how do we "manage it"?

I outlined in this forum how it should be done, by means of in-country recruitment of the needed workforce - not the wild, illegal migration across borders as is happening today. Europe is flooded with refugees from Syria and other parts of the Middle-east. They all come looking for jobs that don't exist - unemployment is high in the EU, and EU nationals come first.

I'll bet any Central American with computer-skills who shows up in Silicon Valley will find someone who will "legalize" their stay in America.

And even the plan I outlined would be difficult to implement, because the manpower entering is really quite basic, unskilled workers. And somebody has to pick the fruit you eat all summer.

Come fall and winter, the migrants do not want to return - so they remain illegal and take jobs wherever they can. And nobody stops them unless they get into trouble. Which is why they show up to support those politicians willing to "legalize" their stay, which is a palliative solution only worsening the situation.

These migrants do not have the skills for the well-paying jobs. Their kids, however, schooled in the US, will have the necessary skills. So, why aren't they skills-schooled in Central America? (Don't ask, it's a political mess down there!)

And if our kids don't want to do their jobs, who will ... ?
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I also think that "normal" immigration is a good thing, where done sensibly. But it does have costs and externalities attached that must be handled well, if it is to strengthen the society and not cause civil unrest. It becomes very difficult to protect a minimum wage system of any kind, for instance and social transfers probably cannot be maintained at the high levels some of our populations have come to believe a human right.

Nota bene: In England and France one experience is striking. An unexpectedly high proportion of terrorists comes from the kids that went to school, had higher education and a seemingly bright future.
 
Lafayette said:
The present system is perfectly capitalistic. The prices of drugs and HC-services are determined and applied by coercion between market participants (Insurance Companies and HeathCare professionals.) Why?

Because there is an insufficient supply of the healthcare professionals, so they set their own prices. And, there is no National Health Service (NHS) that sets prices.

In the EU, NHS system of National, prices are established by negotiating with medical-practitioners and also pharmaceutical companies for bulk deliveries to NHS-run hospitals. Which is why, for instance, pharmaceutical prices in the US are hallucinatory.

Which is also why some Yanks go to Canada to buy their prescription drugs. Private hospitals typically just past the cost through to the patient. (Which is paid by a private healthcare insurance - if the patient is lucky enough to have one.)

Which is the reason why, comparatively, Health Care costs in the US are a extraordinarily higher in cost than elsewhere on this planet:

View attachment 67202084

Note in the above infographic that the total cost per capita in Canada, which has a NHS, is half that of the US ...
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What is one thing to note about the graph is that the US numbers are not homogeneous and consist of at least two very different groups. The one is reliant on public spending health care. Probably the per beneficiary spending is in the area around $ 4.250 - $ 4.550. This group is very different in its behavior concerning nourishment, habitation, hygiene etc than the other group that pays its own way. One might expect that the differences are much as large as those between a Greek unemployed dock worker and a Dutch merchant baron.

It also bares mention that behavioral preferences of a population are probably at least as important in determining the health as the costs of health care. Simplified, in a population drinking XXL super-sugar drinks causes obesity, which causes diabetes and diabetes causes costs, one might expect the costs would be higher, where XXL consumption is higher. This is true for many similar indicators.
 
Lafayette said:
And I maintain you are barking up the wrong tree.

From Project Syndicat, America’s Trade Deficit Begins at Home -excerpt:

I frankly do not know what the solution can be for the US, but I suspect that Import Certificates are not the answer. As I have said to you many a time. They are a palliative solution to Trade Deficits and were never ever intended as a definitive resolution to chronic deficits of any nation. They were allowed to give nations a respite within which to "fix the problem".

Were the US to adopt them uniformly across all its trade, it would provoke all its trading partners (including the EU) to institute an unfair-trading practice under GATT rules at the WTO. Which is why the US has not even attempted to do so ...
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Lafayette, the Import Certificate proposal is unilateral policy that’s substantially market rather than government driven. All benefits due to a nation adopting the Import Certificate proposal are due to its preventing the nation’s annual trade deficit of goods while promoting the nation’s GDP more than otherwise; (otherwise being if the USA did not enact the GDP policy).

[The Import Certificate proposal has provisions for interrupting the policies enactment for years within which there would otherwise be no annual trade deficit. An Import certificate proposal is of no benefit to a nation during those years when it would otherwise not have experienced a trade deficit of goods.]
All of this remains true regardless of all other economic factors; (i.e. it remains true regardless of the nation’s trade balance with any individual nations or its rates of investment or its currencies global exchange rate or any mischief perpetrated by any entities to undermine our global trade or any other facet of our economy.

Respectfully, Supposn
 
joG said:
One might expect that the differences are much as large as those between a Greek unemployed dock worker and a Dutch merchant baron.
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Spurious commentary, particularly at national levels.

Of course the costs are aggregated. Why should they not be? And if so, how does that have any reflection whatsoever on the comparative country-to-country results.

The US has extraordinarily high HealthCare costs*. They are monopolistic**, determined by Private Enterprise Insurance that is non-competitive in the matter. Doctors must not be asked to compete, and neither can pharmaceuticals when they hold a patent on medicines.

All the more reason, in both instances, for a National Health Service to manage it all.

*Moreover, for delivering a much lower life-span. But life-span is also a matter of eating habits, that are formed by societal customs.
**No Competition: The Price Of A Highly Concentrated Health Care Market
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Lafayette said:
Spurious commentary, particularly at national levels.

M... r... a...
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Not really, if you think about it. The US is as large as Europe and probably as, if not more divers. That the socio-economic differences might not be as regional and overlap more is important to some questions, but as a starting place for understanding the data, it seems more intelligent, than comparing Dutch numbers with those of the US or lumping together public and private spending per capita instead of for instance differentiating by the number of beneficiaries of the categories.
 
Lafayette said:
The US has extraordinarily high HealthCare costs*. They are monopolistic**, determined by Private Enterprise Insurance that is non-competitive in the matter. Doctors must not be asked to compete,_
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dear, health care is a very very diverse industry with millions of people and 1000's of companies in all 50 states. If such a structure is monopolistic and overpriced it can only be because of libsocialist govt which naturally creates govt backed monopolies. In fact libsocialist govt made competition illegal in American health care. Do you understand?
 
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