For the Greater Good

"The greatest evil can sometimes result by attempting the greatest good." ... or something like that...

Here is a history lesson for today...

1) The US government wants people to be able to buy a house, so they make it easier for Americans to get loans.

2) The increase in demand... according to laws of supply and demand... raises the prises of homes.

3) People buy houses they can't afford because houses are overprices... yet they still get these crazy loans to help them out

4) Eventually the loan payments are too much and Lehman brothers files for bankruptcy.

5) All because government tried to help people out.

And in case you didn't catch that...

1) The US has tons of grants and laws out there to help people pay for tuition to go to college, because they want to help people and have a more educated society.

2) Colleges see the increase in demand and... raise their prices.

3) Tuition now costs incredible amounts of money that students only afford because of the government money and loans.

4) The end result is the students are in serious debt that they have to pay back for years after they leave school.

5) And now a tuition bubble exists where tuition at many schools has increased 50% in the past 10 years. All because the government tried to help out people.

Other side effects of these good intentions include...

(A) Too many 'smart kids' and not enough plumbers... or any other kind of trade.

And also

(B) Small universities trying to capitalize on this new inflow of cash... And they're crummy.

And

(C) With everyone going to college people are forced to stay in college even longer in grad school to distance themselves from their peers... More time away from giving value into the economy, taking more government grants... and... going into more debt... all because the government tried to help people out.

Here is a video to explain it rather well...

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIcfMMVcYZg&feature=channel

Or for lazy people... the main point of the video is: "It creates a culture of dependency where, because the government is involved and the prices are high, the people need to have government money to afford (insert government initiative here)... but the fact remains that if the government wasn't involved in the first place... the prices would still be low... and they wouldn't need the government to afford it.")

And now, in summary, here is where the lesson applies...

1) The US Government now wants to get into healthcare in order to guarantee health insurance for every American. Again. Really good.

2) But the thing about insurance is... it makes the doctors run a whole gambit of tests for everyone that comes in the door because it is not on the patient's dime... it's all insurance... (which insurance companies would try to limit by being petty, dirty, and cheap)... but on the government's dime, most likely all the tests will be done... again, all on the taxpayer's dime... because the doctor will do everything to make sure they don't get sued....

3) Thus greatly increasing the demand for health care in the states... Greatly increasing hospital costs... Greatly increasing debt...

... So in a sense I really don't like where it's headed... but I'm still for public health care because I still believe insurance companies have a conflict of interest between making profits and caring for sick people...