Question: Should Social Security be Transformed into Private Accounts?

The privatization of social security.
The move to privatize social security would unjustly benefit financial institutions.

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raising federal taxes will be inevitable and be the most responsible thing to do the things that make up by far most of the budget are too hard to cut, and we shouldn't be cutting them too much anyway. social security, medicare, interest on the debt, defense, all make up over ninety percent of our budget. even if you wiped out the rest of the government, which would be the height off irresponsibility, you still couldn't even balance the budget, which is five hundred billion dollars. the budget is four trillion, simple math proves my point. if you were to cut into defense majorly and cut the rest by say ten percent, you might be able to balance the budget. but within the next ten years the deficit will double, and there wouldn't be enough places to cut. tax increases are inevitable and will be the most responsible thing to do.

you shouldnt get caught up on labels because your idea of capitalism could be entirely different from someone elses. for instance you are arguing for capitalism while offering up solutions that most people would consider to be socialist and that doesnt really help an argument for capitalism. this doesnt surprise me because not only do you call yourself a socialist on your profile but you have told me that you agree with my side in the comments and you keep saying that you are just playing devils advocate. currency is useful if people are wage earners, but if machines take over all the jobs, then there will be no wage earners so the system must change from the current economy. obviously all industrialized nations use currency, technology isnt advanced enough for the economic transition. the fact that there are greedy people with money is the reason we might end up destroying ourselves rather than making the transition. either way, there will be no room for wage earning jobs when machines advance. the proof for a technological singularity is all around you. your average person or even poor people today have a better standard of living than royalty did in the middle ages due to innovations. if you went back a hundered yrs ago, many people wouldnt believe that people would be walking around with a wireless cell phone getting on the internet, so you cant just underestimate technology by claiming that this stuff isnt possible. i know that greed played a role in microsofts development, but once innovators achieve success, they tend to play money games a lot with their products. you must understand that im not claiming that capitalism isnt working, im saying that its time is coming to an end because of human advancements. so our success is putting us out of work and no work doesnt mix with capitalism. in conslusion, i want to stress that i am not against capitalism as my opponet who advocates socialism seems to be. i am only stating that humans are evolving and that our system will evolve with us. this isnt something i nessecarily want, but there is no choice. i know that a lot of people will just vote based on pre concieved notions but i dont think you can vote for someone who tells their opponet that they agree with them and still have a clear conscious. please help me by voting for con. even if you disagree with me, atleast recognize that my opponet made no points, and gave no reasons for his opinions. thank you.

Firstly, I reject your definition of capitalism. If I allow you to define capitalism in idealistic terms then you can simply use a sort of pat, circular, ontological argument, you can argue that: Capitalism is a perfect system and so being a perfect system it must ipso facto be the perfect system that it purports to be. Sorry, capitalism is not the lovely, ideal system you assert it to be and you don't get to start from the assumption that it is, you'll have to defend your assumption if you want this to be a real debate. Empirically, in real-world experience that is, we find that capitalist theory when applied permits the development of an economic system characterized by the tendency of individual capitalists and business entities to garner sufficient economic power and political influence to make much about the capitalist way of life less than "voluntary" for working people. Yes, private ownership is the cornerstone of capitalism, in both theory and practice, but in practice unregulated private ownership of the economy by those whose strong sense of self-interest has driven them to the top of the socio-economic food chain hurts the self-interest of everyone else. If you want evidence of this, well, we are living through a recession right now, read the newspaper. If you do you'll note how the greed of bankers and Wall Streeters precipitated a global "financial crisis". Need I say more? If you're someone who's been personally affected by the recession I shouldn't need to say any more, but of course there's ample evidence of the undesirable consequences that private ownership leads to. Just a few random examples. How about businesses that cheat their employees out of their hard-earned pensions, because they can, because the private owners and CEOs of these companies have the power to give themselves golden parachutes and to give a royal screwing to their workers. Or what about the appalling way the ethos of private ownership is allowing the divide, both nationally and globally, between haves and have-nots to widen into a gaping chasm. According to the World Institute for Development Economics Research 1% of the world's population now owns 40% of its wealth, and the most affluent 10% own a whopping 85%! How is this state of economic affairs in the "self-interest" of the majority of human individuals in the world? Private ownership inexorably degenerates into the ownership of way too much by way too few people to be a system that the majority of self-interested people should want to live under. The only reason that many self-interested individuals don't recognize this and oppose capitalism is that they prefer to identify with the winners of the system rather than its victims, and they're under the illusion that there's a good prospect of any hard-working person such as themselves joining the ranks of the winners. Thanks to these two psychological factors, denial about being a member of the routinely shafted working class, and wishful thinking, people fail to appreciate how much private ownership is not in their best interest. Add on all the societal propaganda and programming we're subject to from the cradle to the grave and it's no wonder that most of us don't realize how much private ownership harms our private interests. Ironically, and life is full of ironies, a system that limits or does away with private ownership, and replaces it with more people's ownership would be more in each individual's private interest. Or perhaps this isn't so ironic or counterintuitive at all, we've just been conditioned to think that it is. It's really just common sense that if we the people jointly owned and were in charge of our own livelihoods then economic conditions would start to favor rather than work against our happiness. As for the capitalist system prohibiting force, fraud, and coercion, it only does so in the idealized, ivory-tower version of capitalism. Outside of Milton Friedman's classroom capitalism functions very much through heavy-handed and dishonest methods of making money and protecting the interests of capitalist fat cats. This is not a fluke, it's a fundamental flaw of the system. The capitalist system is of course one in which alpha capitalists and business firms, being free to do so, acquire a disproportionate amount of money and money-power, and use it to exert more and more control, and to begin making the rules of the system so they're easier to bend and break with impunity. This, BTW, is why capitalism is so incompatible with democracy, and why as long as we live under a system of private ownership we'll never have properly functioning public institutions. Sorry if all of the above flies in the face of the definition of capitalism commonly preferred by libertarians, but I'm not interested in debating about the castles that libertarians and other free-marketeers build in the sky, I'm interested in what capitalism turns out to be more down to earth. You next define the term humanitarian, I'll accept your definition and point out that, again, off the pages of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and in the real world, capitalism conduces to the welfare of the few at the expense of the many. The economic success of the First World would have been impossible without its exploitation of Third World resources and peoples during the age of colonialism, and without the continuation of that exploitation in the form of "neo-colonialism" and "globalization". And domestically, well, go survey the millions of working poor in America and ask them how "humanitarian" they find our system, how well it's working to promote their welfare and happiness. Or is theory all you care about, and the real impact of that theory on real people's lives matters not at all to you? Now on to "individual rights". Granting individuals the right to enrich and empower themselves out of all proportion to the rest of society leads to a few individuals setting themselves up in a position to abridge and violate everyone else's individual rights. Eventually, when capitalists and corporations have enough hooks in enough politicians they can pretty much override our vaunted democracy and have things their way, so how well then does capitalism really serve and protect our interests in terms of our individual rights? Not much, alas. As for rational self-interest, if we were more rational and less culturally brainwashed we'd probably profoundly revamp or reject capitalism, since it's a system that hurts the interest of too many of us too much of the time. You then proffer what you consider to be a logically airtight argument for "self-ownership" and private property. Well, socialism would simply be the joint voluntary ownership of the means of production and of society's GDP. It would be people, not that political entity called the state but rather people democratically owning their economic system the way they're supposed to own their political system. In your argument you take the leap of saying that appropriating property for personal use is de rigueur for self-ownership and personal freedom, but this is a leap and where you land in the real world is, once again, a society in which a few alpha owners use their wealth and clout to infringe on everyone else's rights. Ownership by everyone together is what's necessary to guarantee a fair and free society. As for the role of government, it should be to represent the people and their interests, it should be the means by which the people exercise control over both their political and economic life. There's more to life in a society than politics, you can't have a truly democratic society unless democratic values are extended from the public sphere of politics into the private sphere of economics, i.e., socialism! Running low on characters here, so I'll close by saying that communism is not inherently coercive, only certain inauthentic distortions of it. I'll pick up here in the next round.

Very true about us being the public. It's a good age that we're in now, but at the same time, a bad one. This generation at least is becoming a bit smarter when it comes to politics, but at the same time, at least my peers have no clue what's. There are a select few that truly know what's best for the country, but there is strength in numbers. Many of my schoolmates that are going to be of voting age when 08 rolls around don't really know what they want in a president, and like my conformist trend idea, only want to go with what the media force feeds down there throats. I love your idea, but because the media controls so many opinions, I can't see it happening, or at least, getting the support it needs.

I thank subutai for this opportunity to debate. I should also note that while these are all communistic ideas, some are more mine, heavily influenced by Marx, rather than completely Marx"s. 1. The economy Private property, and the property owning classes, are inherently oppressive. They allow the few (bourgeoisie) to oppress the many. They take the produce of those beneath them whom they hold captive with debt, banks and the political establishment. Communism proposes a system in which the economy is used to produce what the people need. Such an economy is based on a democratic hierarchy of elected councils which allows those at the bottom to control the top. Historically, communist economies have suffered mainly from an over centralization of power (not necessarily the same as organization) in the economy. When things went wrong, the higher ups tried to deflect it rather than admit their mistakes and directly fix them. The system MUST have accountability at the heart of it and term limits, power of recall, and transparency are vitally important, but went by the wayside in the 20th century Stalinist systems. As comrade Roy Medvedev states in "Let History Judge", "[socialists] must overcome one of the most dangerous consequences of Stalinism-fear of speaking the truth." Supply and demand for most commodities will be calculated by averaging demand over a certain number of years (probably around five) and then producing at a rate slightly above this. Years where production exceeds demand will produce a surplus which can be used in years where demand exceeds production. The rate at which production exceeds demand for a given commodity will vary depending on the volatility of demand for a commodity. Luxury commodities will be produced in such a way that everybody can receive certain amounts of them, though not in such excess that they either become worthless or it begins to interfere with more vital aspects of the economy. Computers and the digital age will allow us to track demand, compute supply and organize distribution with relative ease, when compared with earlier communist attempts. Governments and corporations already do this, and things like censuses, credit cards and smart phones could be adapted for a communist society. Factories and farms would be balanced between productive efficiency and employment, ensuring everyone can work, and for a reasonable amount of time. Most work would fall into one of three categories, assigned, optional and semi-recreational. Assigned work would be similar in concept to jury duty. Some work is unpleasant, but must be done, like garbage collection. To ensure that it is done, everyone would be assigned a certain time when they must do one of these jobs. Exemptions would be rare, especially for political figures. Optional work may be a misleading way to categorize this section, as the option is not to whether or not to work, but rather what work one does specifically. This category includes factory jobs, farming, teaching and such, jobs which will be how most people contribute to society most of the time, and without which society could not function. Finally there is semi-recreational. This title to could be misleading, as recreational does not mean strictly that they are "fun". Rather, they are not necessarily essential to the day to day functioning of society. A coach, painter or philosopher could fall into this category. They are jobs which an individual decides to put some of his or her time into for the sake of the art, and although the state will gladly aid them in this endeavor with support and materials, they cannot expect more than perhaps a day off for a big game or art exhibition. There is one possible exception to this, which is that people who are considered true masters in an art or sport might make it their profession to aid the state in selecting people whose efforts are worthy of support. 2. Motivation A common accusation against the communist system is that it fails to properly motivate people. Capitalism, for example, claims to offer the ability to move up and offers wealth to those who want it enough. But communism seeks a society of complete equality and no money. So what motivates a man to get up each morning and trudge to work? Well firstly, communist work and capitalist work should be distinguished between. Communism offers a sense of purpose and accomplishment to everybody who will work. It offers to give the people the control over their economy, and work for themselves and their comrades, rather than some fat cat. "In 1990, a collection of research papers edited by Princeton economist Alan Blinder extends the data set much further and reached the same conclusion: worker participation usually enhances productivity in the short run, sometimes in the long run, and rarely has a negative effect. Moreover, participation is most conducive to enhancing productivity when combined with profit sharing, guaranteed long-range employment, relatively narrow wage differentials , and guaranteed worker rights (such as protection from dismissal except for just cause)- precisely the conditions that will prevail under Economic Democracy." [2] This quote is about research related to cooperatives and businesses with worker participation in the US. There are some differences between communism and the cooperative system, but the lesson is clear, worker control and rights, plus economic distribution equals greater productivity. 3. Innovation A communist system can provide innovation and technological advancement, without the pitfalls of capitalist motivation. In capitalism, there are of course the rewards. If you've got a good idea and questionable morals, you might be able to be incredibly rich. The problem is, innovation is not a guarantee from the profit incentive. When people create, or do anything, with the sole goal of profit, they are likely to cut corners and not account for anything which will not directly impede profit in the short term, as our most recent recession shows. There are other purer reasons for why we innovate though. Fame certainly plays into it, everyone likes to be a drum major, as Dr. King would say. But creation for its own sake is very human. If you have a good idea, you want to try and make it happen. Belief in the communist ideal is also a good way to foster innovation and motivation in general. Look at Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle, "... because his invention was never patented, Kalashnikov didn't get rich off royalties. "We worked for socialist society, for the good of the people, which I never regret,"".[3] Communist innovation would be more like kick starter than Microsoft (although kick starter is NOT a communist group). A sort of online petition system would allow people to present their ideas to the public and if an idea was well liked than it would be classed as either a luxury or necessity item, and put into probationary production in a limited number to see if it was popular enough to be mass produced. People who had successful ideas would be able to get a new job organizing production and further improving their creation. Capitalism damages people, it chains them to mediocrity with poverty, makes people cold and self absorbed, and rewards those people who display the worst human qualities with the most money. Communism is the only way we can end such self destructive tendencies in our species. [1]http://www.nytimes.com...... [2]http://trustcurrency.blogspot...... [3]http://america.aljazeera.com...... [4]http://usatoday30.usatoday.com......

What I am saying is the redistribution of wealth is tantamount to building a fairer society. Without going into my political and economic aspirations, the system is broken and the already wealthy are exploiting everyone below them creating an ever increasing inequality gap by doing the very thing your proposing we all should do. I have visions of a Dickensian style Distopian future were we all keep what we earn whilst the world around us falls into a decay of broken health services, street sweepers rusting in a ditch, and orphaned children roaming the streets in search of food all because you kept what you earned and did not give some to someone else. We all have to pay our way to maintain society. We all have to work together. Call it an all inclusive ticket to cohesion. It does not necessarily mean more government, although, if governments were what they are supposed to be and that is our servants and not try to be our rulers then i"m sure more government would be fine. Actually the more people with power would mean the power is not centralized like it is now, making it much less corrupting. Why should the private sector grow to give more money to the government if we should all keep what we get? No more government jobs will create more jobs, i don"t see which social and economic structures are at risk. Can you elaborate? More government in the conventional way does equal less freedom, i agree completely, however, imagine a world in which we were all part of the government, all with equal say in how the country should be run, now wouldn"t that be better?

Let's start out by not quibbling with socialists' false claim health-care service is a human right regardless of ability to pay and that it should be free. Before we buy into this socialist agenda, we might check out just what happens when health-care services are "free." Let's look at our neighbor to the north -- Canada. The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver, B.C.-based think tank, has done yeoman work keeping track of Canada's socialized health-care system. It has just come out with its 13th annual waiting-list survey. It shows the average time a patient waited between referral from a general practitioner to treatment rose from 16.5 weeks in 2001-02 to 17.7 weeks in 2003. Saskatchewan had the longest average waiting time of nearly 30 weeks, while Ontario had the shortest, 14 weeks. Walter E. Williams, the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Waiting lists also exist for diagnostic procedures such as computer tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound. Depending on province and diagnostic procedure, the wait can range from two to 24 weeks. As reported in a December 2003 article by Kerri Houston for the Frontiers of Freedom Institute titled "Access denied: Canada's health-care system turns patients into victims", in some cases, patients die on the waiting list because they become too sick to tolerate a procedure. Miss Houston says hip-replacement patients often end up non-ambulatory while waiting an average of 20 weeks, and that's after waiting 13 weeks just to see the specialist. The wait to get diagnostic scans followed by the wait for the radiologist to read them just might explain why Cleveland, Ohio, became Canada's hip-replacement center. Adding to Canada's medical problems is the exodus of doctors. According to a March 2003 story in Canada News, about 10,000 doctors left Canada in the 1990s. Compounding that exodus is the drop in medical school graduates. According to Miss Houston, Ontario has turned to nurses to replace its bolting doctors. It is "creating" 369 new nurse practitioner positions to take up the doctor shortage. Some patients avoided long waits for medical services by paying for private treatment. In 2003, British Columbia enacted Bill 82, an "Amendment to Strengthen Legislation and Protect Patients." On its face, Bill 82 is to "protect patients from inadvertent billing errors." That's on its face. But according to a January 2004 article by Nadeem Esmail for the Fraser Institute's Forum and titled "Oh to be a prisoner," Bill 82 would disallow anyone from paying the clinical fees for private surgery, where previously only patients were forbidden to do so. The bill also empowers the government to levy fines of up to $20,000 on physicians who accept these fees or allow such a practice. That means it is now against Canadian law to opt out of the health-care system and pay for your own surgery. When price isn't allowed to make demand equal supply, other measures must be taken. One way to distribute the demand is by queuing -- making people wait. Another is to have a medical czar who decides who is eligible, under what conditions, for a particular procedure -- for example, no hip replacement or renal dialysis for people over 70 or no heart transplants for smokers. I'm wondering just how many Americans would like Canada's long waiting lists, medical czars deciding what treatments we get and an exodus of doctors. Here are a few more points for you to think on. -"Free" health care isn't really free since we must pay for it with taxes; expenses for health care would have to be paid for with higher taxes or spending cuts in other areas such as defense, education, etc. -Profit motives, competition, and individual ingenuity have always led to greater cost control and effectiveness. -Government-controlled health care would lead to a decrease in patient flexibility. -Patients aren't likely to curb their drug costs and doctor visits if health care is free; thus, total costs will be several times what they are now. -Just because Americans are uninsured doesn't mean they can't receive health care; nonprofits and government-run hospitals provide services to those who don't have insurance, and it is illegal to refuse emergency medical service because of a lack of insurance. -Government-mandated procedures will likely reduce doctor flexibility and lead to poor patient care. Sources: www.cato.org www.balancedpolotics.org www.capmag.com www.findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov

First, some background information: AFDC: Aid to Families with Dependent Children is a welfare program established by the Social Security Act of 1935. It supports single mothers with children, people with disabilities, and people in poverty. This is where all of your welfare tax money goes to - the AFDC provides targeted families with a certain amount of financial support. W-2: The "Wisconsin Works" program, designed by Tommy Thompson, has replaced the AFDC in Wisconsin. Instead of the main focus being welfare, it is more of an employment program. It provides welfare recipients with job training, transportation, child care and health care, thus decreasing the amount of money needed for welfare. My argument (pro) is in support of W-2 over AFDC. I will support my case by stating points. Point 1: According to ontheissues.org, Wisconsin has decreased the number of welfare-dependent families by 93% under W-2 (from 98,000 to 6,700). Through job skills training, former welfare recipients now have jobs that can support their basic needs without government assistance. Point 2: In 1996, the AFDC spent $24 billion on welfare. Many of these families, because the welfare was all they needed, had no motivation for work, and thus leeched off the government and the taxpayers for support. Welfare also encourages families to have more children, as this boosts the bonus received.

First, some definitions. Sarbanes-Oxley Act: An act signed in 2002 mandating stringent and expensive corporate reporting standards for the sake of protecting investors. . http://en.wikipedia.org... Similar Legislation: Any other act mandating reporting standards for the sake of protecting investors. Social Benefit: A benefit to society as a whole external to a select group. Social Cost: A cost to society external to a select group. I have three reasons for believing that Sarbanes-Oxley and similar legislation should be repealed. First, the "social cost" of corporate failures are borne almost solely by the investors and the employees and therefore are not a concern of the people. Second, investors and employees are perfectly capable of policing said corporations without the help of the government, making government help in doing so something of a public subsidy to the corporate sector. Third, corporations that fail due to an inability to prevent fraud and negligence through organizational control or ability to boost morale and loyalty deserve to fail and should not be prevented from doing so by the government. My first point is that the costs of corporate failures are borne by a very select group of people, the employees of the failed corporations and their investors. The public does not really suffer from organizational collapses in anything but the short term. Factories are sold off, employees find new jobs, office buildings are re-branded. The fact that the suffering is limited to a select group of people would not, of course, normally stand on its own, since murder victims are also a select group of people. It is, however, substantially strengthened by my second point, that investors are perfectly capable of policing their investments themselves. Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme was flagged by a small investment advising firm called Aksia long before it collapsed. . http://www.bloomberg.com... This goes to show that investors have all the resources needed to ensure the soundness of their investments and then some. Of course, the fact that investors are able to defend themselves from fraud does not mean that the government shouldn't step in. After all, even if one carries a gun, one can still reasonably expect the police to help him if he is mugged or robbed. However, if one is to assume that the government should protect investments, where does it end? Should the government have a hand in making sure that employees spend their time as productively as possible, that secretaries don't make personal calls and swipe office supplies? Yes, embezzlement is theft, but technically, so is goofing off on "company time". And finally, corporations that are unable to prevent fraud, either through intelligent policy or through inspiration, should fail. In either case, the shareholders are simply incompetent. Incompetent people simply should not benefit from a capitalistic society, especially if they are at its apex. Corporate enforcement by the government is, in many ways, subsidized management. Corporations are meant to be self-interested capitalistic entities; they should not receive subsidies of any kind. Ultimately, the only real purpose Sarbanes-Oxley and other legislation of its kind really serve is that of legally cementing shareholder control. They transform the corporation, normally a free-market entity, into an authoritarian one. Actions that are normally motivated by rational self-interest become instead forced by law. The virtue of capitalism is that it ensures cooperation not through punishment, but through reward. To bring the legal system into the world of corporate governance is to betray this principle.

I. Intro Thank you Varrack for the rebuttal. I"d also like to apologize for my constructive having issues with use of apostrophes. I"m not sure why it"s replacing apostrophes with quotation marks. I"ve encountered this issue on mobile but never on my laptop, so I"m not sure how to fix it. Hopefully it won"t continue this round. Regardless, I apologize to Varrack and the readers, since it likely causes at least some minor irritation. II. Re: Economic/Societal Impacts As briefly mentioned in my constructive, the examples used in Pro"s case are not indicative of what would occur in the United States, due to the differences between the US and each of the countries. These nations are significantly poorer than the United States. According to the CIA Factbook, the United States poverty rate is 15.1%. The nearest of the three countries Varrack mentioned was Uganda, at 19.7%. [7] This means that each of these nations have significantly more room for improvement than the United States does, so the effects will be amplified. They are all significantly more corrupt than the United States, based on Transparency International"s research. The United States is 16th in the world with a score of 75. Namibia is 53rd with a score of 51, India is 81st with a score of 40, Kenya is ranked 143 with 28 points, and Uganda is 151st with a score of 26. [8] They are also all in more unstable regions and have less developed economies. They"re still developing. Best case scenario, it"s as if you"re looking through a kaleidoscope at the effects of UBI. Worst case scenario, they aren"t comparable at all. These countries also have very limited trials. We"d have a very difficult time applying the micro tests to a country that is very different, be it in poverty rates (and what the poverty level actually is), corruption, economic development levels, or national sovereignty and security. Prefer my tests from the UK, which is much more similar to the US on every count. III. Re: Failure of Welfare Programs Cross-apply Section V. of my case. Though means-based welfare programs have "negative incentives" for earnings, they are at a much lower rate than the rates for individuals who are making more money. I discussed in my case how individuals who make below half the poverty rate (approximately $6,000) have a marginal tax rate of 14%. Individuals who make 50%-100% of the poverty rate (roughly $6,000-$12,000) have a marginal tax rate of 24%. People who make more than that faced a rate of 34%. This means that people that receive means-tested welfare are actually facing far fewer "negative incentives" than those who are making, say, $70,000 a year. To say that they are decentivized due to these marginal tax rates is ludicrous, else we would see the same issues at higher rates among those with greater incomes. We simply do not. Furthermore, an asset cap isn"t necessarily an issue. If there is no asset cap, we face the issue posed in my case: individuals who don"t need aid will receive it anyway, wasting funds. Again, a person who makes a comfortable wage may find an extra $10,000 nice, it is far from necessary. Even an individual making $30,000 (assuming no dependents) may be fine without an extra $10,000. If Pro wants to argue for a higher asset cap, there is definitely an argument to be made. However, an asset cap is not a bad idea, as it avoids allocation of resources to those who do not need it. Finally, as stated in case, the issue with considering the "poverty rate" in the United States is that it doesn"t account for in-kind reception of welfare. As an incredibly simplified example, let"s assume I make $11,000 per year and the poverty line is at $12,000. If I receive $1,001 worth of food stamps, my income is effectively $12,001 per year, above the poverty line, but I would still be counted as below the poverty line. Measuring the effectiveness of the current welfare programs by analyzing the poverty rate is absolutely pointless, because most of the welfare programs aren"t accounted for in the measure of the poverty rate. IV. Conclusion UBI is a pipe dream in the United States. Without first eradicating capitalism, it will do nothing but drive down wages and act a subsidiary to businesses. There have been no tests of UBI that can be applied to the United States which point toward a success. Each of the studies offers a myriad of issues that separate it from America. Meanwhile, the current welfare system is working, contrary to what analysis of the incomplete poverty rate would indicate. It is putting Americans well above their European counterparts. UBI is neither plausible, needed, or likely to be effective. V. Sources [7] https://www.cia.gov... [8] https://www.transparency.org...


Question: Should Social Security Be Transformed into Private Accounts?

Privatizing Social Security with a guaranteed minimum is a superior alternative to the existing system. Privatizing Social Security with assured benefits is superior to the current setup, as only relatively secure investments approved by the government would be permitted. This approach is preferable to the current system because, with better investment returns, individuals would enjoy a significantly higher income in their retirement years. The potential drawback is that market failures could still pose a challenge, irrespective of whether private investments are allowed. Even under the present system, if the economy were to collapse, the government would still be liable for a certain level of financial support. An additional advantage is that the government would no longer be able to borrow against Social Security funds, thereby forcing our government to either raise taxes or keep spending in check, instead of masking fiscal issues by borrowing against people's retirement savings.

I agree with your definitions. Mine were definitely not carefully thought through. Although I fail to see how they are arbitrary or biased, they do appear to be inaccurate, so I submit to the definitions you have provided. Let's start with some statistics. Democratic socialist/social democratic welfare states such as Denmark, Norway, Canada, and Sweden have constant successes relating to economic/quality of life issues. Norway has the highest living standard in the world, graduated using the Human Development Index. In fourth place is Denmark, with a HDI of 0.923. Denmark is the happiest country in the world, closely followed by four other democratic socialist/quazi-socialist countries. Canada, Norway and Sweden are all in the top ten countries ranked by life expectancy. Countries such as these are obviously some of the most successful in the world. It's because of socially democratic policies that protect equal opportunity so that all people have an equal chance of succeeding. The private sector has failed us by allowing corporate greed and carelessness to come before the needs of the people. Take Martin Shkreli, for example, the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. Overnight, he raised the price of a single pill used to combat HIV/AIDS from $13.50 to $750. Because he had a monopoly on the drug, he knowingly and willingly withheld the drug from people dying of AIDS who could not afford to pay $750 per pill. This is just plain wrong, and this is why we need socialized healthcare and college tuition, following the policies of the aforementioned countries. Eagerly awaiting your response!

Response Point 1: In Finland, the people don't mind giving their wealth away? Does anybody recognize the flaws in this statement? Think of it this way: You mow 10 yards and earn $150. Now how would you like it if $100 of that was taken away? I'm sure you won't be happy. And plus, socialism ONLY works in small countries (a.k.a the Scandinavian Counries). And it still does not work as well as Capitalism. It is very inefficient. Response Point 2: Again, you think the foreign countries are going to give their profit to save a country by making the price of their product lower? Really? Think of it this way: You mow 10 yards and earn $150. Now would you then go and freely give that profit away to help a business or government that ruins itself through bad decisions? I don't think so. And plus, two things; one, the Government ruining of a business happens all to often (look at us). This would happen at least once a month because Socialists are terrible at economics. And two, increasing supply will decrease prices, but then, the law of diminishing marginal returns, then negative marginal returns sets in, and you begin losing profit, then making a loss. Believe me, businesses know how to maximize profit. They are at equilibrium quantity for their product. They will NOT make more or less becuase it would eat into their profit. Response Point 3: Again, fiscally responsible? Having more money does not decrease fiscal responsibility (unless of course, you are the US Government). And classes are eliminated; is that a good thing? Plus, with the Government managing unconstitution healthcare and using stupid economic policies (like us), do you again think that this is a good thing? Response Point 4: http://harvardmagazine.com... http://www.salon.com... "In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society": http://en.wikipedia.org... In other words, economic growth puts more money into the Americans, it means there is no recession, it means that businesses are becoming more efficient, it means that more American jobs are being created, and it means that the economy is getting stronger. Clear? Response Point 5: Yes. But it is a aspect of hard-line Socialism that will come into being sooner or later in the Socialist state. With people getting to decide where they work for is better than the Government getting to decide, even if the person looks "qualified" (this is very subjective), the job market is more efficient. Defense Point 1: Forward progress is good for all. For the poor and rich. What happens when the CEOs of businesses and top 1% get richer? It means that more Americans are getting the products that they want. It means that employee's salaries are being raised. It means that there is Economic Growth. Defense Point 2: Competition is great. It lowers prices, which is good for the consumer, and amazingly, bad for the 1% (because they have to sell their product for less). Defense Point 3: Having generic, substandard products makes the higher-quality products have lower prices. It helps the poor by being able to get an alternative that is still very good, and it helps the middle class by making the higher-quality products have lower prices so that they can buy them. Defense Point 4: Businesses can not stay alfloat by selling substandard products. That is impossible in a Capitalistic society. Impossible. Why? Becuase consumers will always buy the higher-quality product (so long as they can afford it). Defense Point 5: As in the same reasons mentioned above, economic growth is good for all. Attack Point 1: "It's a mistake to think that poor people get the benefit from the welfare system. It's a total fraud. Most welfare go to the rich of this country: the military-industrial complex, the bankers, the foreign dictators, it's totally out of control. [...] This idea that the government has services or goods that they can pass on is a complete farce. Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another at the destruction of the principles of freedom, and we ought to challenge that concept.": http://en.wikiquote.org.... A Ron Paul Quote. Attack Point 2: "Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It's not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!": http://en.wikiquote.org.... A Ron Paul Quote. Attack Point 3: http://www.financialsamurai.com...; a great analogy. Please read and debate if you want. http://www.rochesterconservative.com...; Please read and debate if you want. http://toddweber.wordpress.com...; Please read and debate if you want.

Firstly, I reject your definition of capitalism. If I allow you to define capitalism in idealistic terms then you can simply use a sort of pat, circular, ontological argument, you can argue that: Capitalism is a perfect system and so being a perfect system it must ipso facto be the perfect system that it purports to be. Sorry, capitalism is not the lovely, ideal system you assert it to be and you don't get to start from the assumption that it is, you'll have to defend your assumption if you want this to be a real debate. Empirically, in real-world experience that is, we find that capitalist theory when applied permits the development of an economic system characterized by the tendency of individual capitalists and business entities to garner sufficient economic power and political influence to make much about the capitalist way of life less than "voluntary" for working people. Yes, private ownership is the cornerstone of capitalism, in both theory and practice, but in practice unregulated private ownership of the economy by those whose strong sense of self-interest has driven them to the top of the socio-economic food chain hurts the self-interest of everyone else. If you want evidence of this, well, we are living through a recession right now, read the newspaper. If you do you'll note how the greed of bankers and Wall Streeters precipitated a global "financial crisis". Need I say more? If you're someone who's been personally affected by the recession I shouldn't need to say any more, but of course there's ample evidence of the undesirable consequences that private ownership leads to. Just a few random examples. How about businesses that cheat their employees out of their hard-earned pensions, because they can, because the private owners and CEOs of these companies have the power to give themselves golden parachutes and to give a royal screwing to their workers. Or what about the appalling way the ethos of private ownership is allowing the divide, both nationally and globally, between haves and have-nots to widen into a gaping chasm. According to the World Institute for Development Economics Research 1% of the world's population now owns 40% of its wealth, and the most affluent 10% own a whopping 85%! How is this state of economic affairs in the "self-interest" of the majority of human individuals in the world? Private ownership inexorably degenerates into the ownership of way too much by way too few people to be a system that the majority of self-interested people should want to live under. The only reason that many self-interested individuals don't recognize this and oppose capitalism is that they prefer to identify with the winners of the system rather than its victims, and they're under the illusion that there's a good prospect of any hard-working person such as themselves joining the ranks of the winners. Thanks to these two psychological factors, denial about being a member of the routinely shafted working class, and wishful thinking, people fail to appreciate how much private ownership is not in their best interest. Add on all the societal propaganda and programming we're subject to from the cradle to the grave and it's no wonder that most of us don't realize how much private ownership harms our private interests. Ironically, and life is full of ironies, a system that limits or does away with private ownership, and replaces it with more people's ownership would be more in each individual's private interest. Or perhaps this isn't so ironic or counterintuitive at all, we've just been conditioned to think that it is. It's really just common sense that if we the people jointly owned and were in charge of our own livelihoods then economic conditions would start to favor rather than work against our happiness. As for the capitalist system prohibiting force, fraud, and coercion, it only does so in the idealized, ivory-tower version of capitalism. Outside of Milton Friedman's classroom capitalism functions very much through heavy-handed and dishonest methods of making money and protecting the interests of capitalist fat cats. This is not a fluke, it's a fundamental flaw of the system. The capitalist system is of course one in which alpha capitalists and business firms, being free to do so, acquire a disproportionate amount of money and money-power, and use it to exert more and more control, and to begin making the rules of the system so they're easier to bend and break with impunity. This, BTW, is why capitalism is so incompatible with democracy, and why as long as we live under a system of private ownership we'll never have properly functioning public institutions. Sorry if all of the above flies in the face of the definition of capitalism commonly preferred by libertarians, but I'm not interested in debating about the castles that libertarians and other free-marketeers build in the sky, I'm interested in what capitalism turns out to be more down to earth. You next define the term humanitarian, I'll accept your definition and point out that, again, off the pages of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and in the real world, capitalism conduces to the welfare of the few at the expense of the many. The economic success of the First World would have been impossible without its exploitation of Third World resources and peoples during the age of colonialism, and without the continuation of that exploitation in the form of "neo-colonialism" and "globalization". And domestically, well, go survey the millions of working poor in America and ask them how "humanitarian" they find our system, how well it's working to promote their welfare and happiness. Or is theory all you care about, and the real impact of that theory on real people's lives matters not at all to you? Now on to "individual rights". Granting individuals the right to enrich and empower themselves out of all proportion to the rest of society leads to a few individuals setting themselves up in a position to abridge and violate everyone else's individual rights. Eventually, when capitalists and corporations have enough hooks in enough politicians they can pretty much override our vaunted democracy and have things their way, so how well then does capitalism really serve and protect our interests in terms of our individual rights? Not much, alas. As for rational self-interest, if we were more rational and less culturally brainwashed we'd probably profoundly revamp or reject capitalism, since it's a system that hurts the interest of too many of us too much of the time. You then proffer what you consider to be a logically airtight argument for "self-ownership" and private property. Well, socialism would simply be the joint voluntary ownership of the means of production and of society's GDP. It would be people, not that political entity called the state but rather people democratically owning their economic system the way they're supposed to own their political system. In your argument you take the leap of saying that appropriating property for personal use is de rigueur for self-ownership and personal freedom, but this is a leap and where you land in the real world is, once again, a society in which a few alpha owners use their wealth and clout to infringe on everyone else's rights. Ownership by everyone together is what's necessary to guarantee a fair and free society. As for the role of government, it should be to represent the people and their interests, it should be the means by which the people exercise control over both their political and economic life. There's more to life in a society than politics, you can't have a truly democratic society unless democratic values are extended from the public sphere of politics into the private sphere of economics, i.e., socialism! Running low on characters here, so I'll close by saying that communism is not inherently coercive, only certain inauthentic distortions of it. I'll pick up here in the next round.

First off, I think we need to take a more in depth look at the meaning of Socialism. I believe that Oxford Dictionaries gives a better definition: "A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." [1] With this definition, we can see that the community (or government) does not necessarily have to own every thing, but everything is regulated by the government. So, I'd accept my opponent's definition if it had an "or" between "ownership" and "administration". Pro brought up Luke 6:20 "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." Pro asserted, then, that Jesus is, in this verse, enabling and glorifying the poor. First, I'd like Pro to explain what he means by "enabling". I believe that Pro does not realize the intention of the word "poor". In this verse, Jesus is not referring to those with little or no money, rather he is referring to those who are poor in spirit. We can see this when we look at Matthew's account of the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This verse is not saying to those who are poor in spirit shall automatically be saved, but rather Jesus was referring to those who were the outcasts of the society, those who were considered less holy or unholy, and saying that they are not excluded from the kingdom of heaven, instead, these were the people that God would call. James 2:5 reads " Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?" Now, the next verse, Luke 6:24, "But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort." This again was interpreted the wrong way. Jesus here is referring to those who let riches become their idle. Later in the book of Luke, chapter 12 Jesus tells the "Parable of the Rich Fool" and ends in verse 21, "So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." Pro then brought up Matthew (Pro mistakenly labeled it as Mark) 19:23-24 "Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."" This is talking about something totally different. John MacArthur on his commentary of verse 24 explains it well, by first pointing out that Jesus is stating that it is impossible for a rich man to get to heaven, then goes on and explains, "Jesus was underscoring the impossibility of anyone's being saved by merit. Since wealth was deemed proof of God's approval, and those who had it could give more alms, it was commonly thought that rich people were the most likely candidates for heaven. Jesus destroyed that notion, and along with it, the notion that anyone can merit enough divine favor to gain entrance into heaven." This can be seen by how Jesus' disciple responded in verse 25 and Jesus' response in verse 26, "When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."" In other words, salvation is possible only through divine grace. Next Pro brought up Matthew 19:21-22, "Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth." This is the same issue as earlier. Jesus was testing this man because he knew what his idle was: riches. Jesus didn't ask ask everyone to go and sell everything they had to follow him. Peter still had a house which he never sold, yet in verse 27 he says, "We have left everything to follow you!" The disciples understood what Jesus was getting at, you had to leave everything behind, value Jesus above anything else, not sell everything you own and give to the poor. So, we can see that nothing that Pro brought up actually supports the idea that Jesus had socialist views. We know that Jesus had very charitable views, and he encouraged charity, but no where did he force it. Socialism is basically forced charity, and thus is not charity. For all these reasons, I believe that I have disproven Pro's assertions. I wish to do more than that though. I wish to also prove to you all that Jesus' views are not socialist, but are quite the opposite. I would assert that Jesus' views are actually quite capitalistic. I'd like to make a clarification point. Anything taught in the Bible is Christ's views, as Jesus is God, and the Bible is God's word. Now, God's views on economic theory can be summed up in one verse. Exodus 20:15 reads, "You shall not steal." If God had socialist views, then it would read, "You shall not steal, except by majority vote". Just because the majority wants to take someone's money and give it to someone else, does not mean it is right. By definition, it is stealing. A quote by George Bernard Shaw reveals the treachery of it, "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul." While the main point of that quote is a bit off subject, it does help you to realize that socialism and a welfare state violate the eighth commandment, hiding behind the mask of kindness to the poor. Christ said in Luke 10:7, "the laborer is worthy of his wages". If you take some of the laborer's wages and give it to another person who earns less, you are stealing. Redistribution is stealing; it's as simple as that. For these reasons voting Con is justified. [1] Oxford Online Dictionaries. "Socialism". http://www.oxforddictionaries.com...

>Are you saying that there should be no law against falsifying financial statements? Advertisements employ the art of persuasion, where rhetoric and innuendo are appropriate. Financial statements should be factually accurate by law because altering them with incorrect information and causing people to invest money based on that false information is exactly the kind of thing which people should be prohibited from doing. Aren't financial statements generated by the bank? I am all for making sure that banking standards are a strict as possible. >I understand that most corporate failures don't occur from corporate malfeasance. In fact, I spoke on that point in the first round. I also understand that economies eventually recover and that successful businesses absorb their weaker and defunct competition. However, just because corporate fraud doesn't affect every company does not mean it should be left unregulated by law. My point wasn't that most corporate failures don't occur from corporate malfeasance. My point was that most companies don't fail from corporate malfeasance, period. >You argued in the first round that corporate failures do not cause a social harm. Your blanket assertion did not distinguish between the different causes of those failures. My "blanket assertion" was with regard to isolated corporate failures like Enron's, not nationwide economic recessions. Hopefully, your last rebuttal will address the former kind of failure rather than the latter. >SOX is not intended to protect investors from corporate failure; it is intended, in part, to protect investors from crooked practices. Why should they be protected by the government? Why can't they just hire their own auditors? Why shouldn't they be forced to do so? If they can't afford it, they obviously shouldn't be running a corporation. >When businesses fail, it affects more than just the investors and employees, who make up a large portion of society anyway. It affects consumers, related businesses and economies as well. This effect equates to a social harm. Again, we're talking about isolated corporate failures here. When A business fails, its assets are bought out by other companies and put back to work. >Sufficient for what? Early detection of a dubious investment is a utopian notion. In reality, deception often goes undetected for a substantial period of time or occurs after a period of ostensibly legitimate activity and practices. Such was the case in all of the pre-SOX corporate debacles. Red flags don't just pop up at the first instance of fraudulent activity. By the time they do, it may already be too late. To equate spotting a crack-head on the edge of a sketchy neighborhood to recognizing sophisticated and surreptitious white collar crime is a bit of a stretch. Your model of the investor/executive relationship presupposes that investors will have very little to do with how the business will be set up and run. If the investors were more involved in the process of creating Enron, I doubt that the byzantine accounting practices that made the debacle possible would have been put in place. I have no trouble with economically forcing investors to work on their investments. >SOX serves the interests of people who disagree with the notion of getting ripped off, which includes me, the government and an overwhelming majority of the country. The "notion" of getting ripped off is not nearly as important a reality as the fact that the group of people getting ripped off is very select. >A large number of shareholders cannot practically or effectively run a corporation without delegating certain roles to certain members. SOX sets a legal standard for these trusted positions, as it should for the power they hold. It is not an intrusion into capitalism. And the ones with the most power should be peopled with those the shareholders can trust. If they can't screen their most important employees with the kind of competence necessary to prevent fraud, they shouldn't be investing in a company. >Businesses cannot put people behind bars. They can make sure that some people never work again. They can blacklist people and shut them out of the workforce. They can actually do a lot of things if they can be bothered to. >Are you saying the law should only protect property that is necessary to survival? The law protects me from someone stealing my wallet, even if I only had $1 in it. So why shouldn't it protect me from someone stealing my investments? In the context of Corporate America, SOX decreases the incentive, opportunity and means to cheat the public and allows for the harsh punishment of those who attempt to do so. This is where we just have to agree to disagree. I make a very clear distinction between "private property" and "personal property", you do not. The difference between the two is almost a matter of taste, and so can't be debate very clearly.

I. Intro Thank you Varrack for the rebuttal. I"d also like to apologize for my constructive having issues with use of apostrophes. I"m not sure why it"s replacing apostrophes with quotation marks. I"ve encountered this issue on mobile but never on my laptop, so I"m not sure how to fix it. Hopefully it won"t continue this round. Regardless, I apologize to Varrack and the readers, since it likely causes at least some minor irritation. II. Re: Economic/Societal Impacts As briefly mentioned in my constructive, the examples used in Pro"s case are not indicative of what would occur in the United States, due to the differences between the US and each of the countries. These nations are significantly poorer than the United States. According to the CIA Factbook, the United States poverty rate is 15.1%. The nearest of the three countries Varrack mentioned was Uganda, at 19.7%. [7] This means that each of these nations have significantly more room for improvement than the United States does, so the effects will be amplified. They are all significantly more corrupt than the United States, based on Transparency International"s research. The United States is 16th in the world with a score of 75. Namibia is 53rd with a score of 51, India is 81st with a score of 40, Kenya is ranked 143 with 28 points, and Uganda is 151st with a score of 26. [8] They are also all in more unstable regions and have less developed economies. They"re still developing. Best case scenario, it"s as if you"re looking through a kaleidoscope at the effects of UBI. Worst case scenario, they aren"t comparable at all. These countries also have very limited trials. We"d have a very difficult time applying the micro tests to a country that is very different, be it in poverty rates (and what the poverty level actually is), corruption, economic development levels, or national sovereignty and security. Prefer my tests from the UK, which is much more similar to the US on every count. III. Re: Failure of Welfare Programs Cross-apply Section V. of my case. Though means-based welfare programs have "negative incentives" for earnings, they are at a much lower rate than the rates for individuals who are making more money. I discussed in my case how individuals who make below half the poverty rate (approximately $6,000) have a marginal tax rate of 14%. Individuals who make 50%-100% of the poverty rate (roughly $6,000-$12,000) have a marginal tax rate of 24%. People who make more than that faced a rate of 34%. This means that people that receive means-tested welfare are actually facing far fewer "negative incentives" than those who are making, say, $70,000 a year. To say that they are decentivized due to these marginal tax rates is ludicrous, else we would see the same issues at higher rates among those with greater incomes. We simply do not. Furthermore, an asset cap isn"t necessarily an issue. If there is no asset cap, we face the issue posed in my case: individuals who don"t need aid will receive it anyway, wasting funds. Again, a person who makes a comfortable wage may find an extra $10,000 nice, it is far from necessary. Even an individual making $30,000 (assuming no dependents) may be fine without an extra $10,000. If Pro wants to argue for a higher asset cap, there is definitely an argument to be made. However, an asset cap is not a bad idea, as it avoids allocation of resources to those who do not need it. Finally, as stated in case, the issue with considering the "poverty rate" in the United States is that it doesn"t account for in-kind reception of welfare. As an incredibly simplified example, let"s assume I make $11,000 per year and the poverty line is at $12,000. If I receive $1,001 worth of food stamps, my income is effectively $12,001 per year, above the poverty line, but I would still be counted as below the poverty line. Measuring the effectiveness of the current welfare programs by analyzing the poverty rate is absolutely pointless, because most of the welfare programs aren"t accounted for in the measure of the poverty rate. IV. Conclusion UBI is a pipe dream in the United States. Without first eradicating capitalism, it will do nothing but drive down wages and act a subsidiary to businesses. There have been no tests of UBI that can be applied to the United States which point toward a success. Each of the studies offers a myriad of issues that separate it from America. Meanwhile, the current welfare system is working, contrary to what analysis of the incomplete poverty rate would indicate. It is putting Americans well above their European counterparts. UBI is neither plausible, needed, or likely to be effective. V. Sources [7] https://www.cia.gov... [8] https://www.transparency.org...

Well, you could have tried to argue how money and private property enslaves us, rather than just claiming it does(claims need reason/logic or facts to back it up). Perhaps the character limit you set on this debate made it so that you couldn't really argue for it properly, but I think there was sufficient room for a reason or two. If you provided reasons formoney and private property enslaving us, I may have agreed with you and conceded the debate. It would certainly be easier to convince a socialist to turn communist than a capitalist to turn communist. We could make a debate specifically on how money and private property enslave us, if you want. I would be up for that. If the claim is "Money and private property enslave us" you would take the pro position and I would take the con position. Feel free to challenge me again if you think you have good reasons for believing money and property enslave us.

What I am saying is the redistribution of wealth is tantamount to building a fairer society. Without going into my political and economic aspirations, the system is broken and the already wealthy are exploiting everyone below them creating an ever increasing inequality gap by doing the very thing your proposing we all should do. I have visions of a Dickensian style Distopian future were we all keep what we earn whilst the world around us falls into a decay of broken health services, street sweepers rusting in a ditch, and orphaned children roaming the streets in search of food all because you kept what you earned and did not give some to someone else. We all have to pay our way to maintain society. We all have to work together. Call it an all inclusive ticket to cohesion. It does not necessarily mean more government, although, if governments were what they are supposed to be and that is our servants and not try to be our rulers then i"m sure more government would be fine. Actually the more people with power would mean the power is not centralized like it is now, making it much less corrupting. Why should the private sector grow to give more money to the government if we should all keep what we get? No more government jobs will create more jobs, i don"t see which social and economic structures are at risk. Can you elaborate? More government in the conventional way does equal less freedom, i agree completely, however, imagine a world in which we were all part of the government, all with equal say in how the country should be run, now wouldn"t that be better?

1. The first arguement that id like to take up on this point is that yes medicare does help alot of people, lower income etc this just further fuels my point on point 4 so thank you. The second part is that while yes it does work it is not a universal program it only focuses on a section of the people not everyone. Also as a side note one person cant keep an entire system working and by saying you have a good president still wont solve the problem of having a working program, its just to big of a job. 2. The first point on this flow id like to say feeling good because its one less thing to worry about wont protect the people from the absurd taxing like you proposed in the plan. Also they wont be paying less because as it is now the companies help pay and fund the different insurances. In all a unviersal health care would completely collapse our already fraying economy. 3. So this whole argument contradicts the point of a universal health care, to keep hospitals and doctors still private would not reach the perspective of a universal health care since not everyone is entitled to the same thing. Bringing us back to the heart of capitalism, competition which will be lacking if the plan is implemented. 4. Your still missing the point there are systems like Medicare like you mention that cover people who are in need of it. The reason why I mentioned this is because you could argue that if people wouldn't get attention which i was proving incorrect but since you agree theres no need to argue this any more. 5. Really the points you make here are just not true, when funded by the government like every other program ran by the government the doctors will be told what to do and how to do it. I mentioned India because they have a universal health care system and it is one of the poorest in the world this being the leading reason, doctors don't care as much anymore. 6. No it wouldn't lower because in this new system everyone basically pays the same amount, for people like me I go in once a year for a physical other than that I'm relatively healthy so why should i pay that much more, when other people who choose a unhealthy lifestyle and cost more a year eventually raising prices for me to help take care of the unhealthy person thats why a universal health care system would be bad. 7. While that may be true eventually its the transition that will kill the economy before the cavalry comes. Also look to point 8 on the flow and this ties in with this point in the fact that less doctors would want to do the job so they wouldn't be in such large demand. 8. Again look to point 3 and how this contradicts the point of a universal health care if everything is still privatized. To deny the fact that doctors become doctors because of the fame and status is just ignorant, sure some may not fit the type but the vast majority do. 9. So basically your conceding to the fact that since our health coverage is working why change it so thank you. As another side note any country with a universal health coverage none of them have a good system, just a bare system. Also its not a right its a privilege that you should work hard for not be given to you on a silver spoon. 10. The point to this argument here is that health care in other nations like India, see point 5, because they are so poor and ours is so great changing that would hurt everything in our medical infrastructure and see my other points as to how universal cant be socialized or privatized. It may not be everyone which yeah i suppose i can attest to that but in the status quo nothing is broken when you compare us to every other country, just try and name one with a better health system.