If everybody owns it...

2 years ago, I watched the Michael Moore documentary, 'SICKO' - A documentary comparing the highly profitable American health care industry to other nations, and shared some HMO horror stories [read the synopsys at imdb]. The film pushed the praises of Universal Healthcare systems in Canada, France, and Cuba.

After watching the film twice, My wife and I were sold on the virtues of Universal Healthcare. That is until I took my economics class as part of my MBA program taught by Dr. Bill Boyes who figuratively slapped some economic sense back into me. The key takeaway was this:

If nobody owns it. Nobody takes care if it.

If somebody owns it. somebody takes care of it.

If everybody owns it. Nobody takes care of it.

In case you're wondering who everybody is - everybody is the Government.

So think about... Why is the global environment is in shambles, but your neighborhood's yards are beautifully landscaped? And have you seen the yard of the house in foreclosure down the street?

So back to healthcare. Lets keep it out of everybody's hands. Let the healthcare practitioners run their practices and give them the freedom to give you the care that you're willing to pay for. Let the drug companies invest in R&D and sell their drugs, so that you can feel better, or at least not get worse. Let the medical device companies innovate and sell to the hospitals so that they can save your life. Take your personal health into your own hands, not everybody's hands.

Socialism For Dummies

I received this email the other day, puts the whole socialsim thing in a very simple concept.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

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That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "Okay, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade, so no one would fail, and no one would receive an A.”

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the third test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them, “Socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.”

It cannot be any simpler than that.

(Please pass this on.)

Changing Views III - Socialists vs. Capitalists

I've always believed in the free market - even before I knew what it meant. It just makes sense though. I didn't grow up receiving an allowance, but as the son of two business owners, I quickly learned the value of a dollar and how incentives worked. My dad paid me to wash the car, and rewarded me for doing chores or helping out during the week by taking me out on Saturday mornings for hot chocolate and donuts.

College was paid for by student loans mostly. My parents did help out a bit my freshman year with dorm expenses. In fact, I just paid my undergrad loans off 2 years ago, just in time to take out more loans on my MBA. I recall a conversation I had with my friend Bryan towards the end of my undergrad years when he asked me why I wanted to get into real estate sales. I told him something along the lines of, "First, because I genuinely like helping people, especially on potentially their biggest purchase to date. Second, because real estate is a nearly perfect market of buyers and sellers. Supply and Demand. It just makes sense. Third, I get paid on a commission - I sell a bunch of houses, I make a bunch of money. What a great incentive to excel."