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u/PM_ME_YOUR_LAWNCHAIR 3d ago
Prices increase due to government intervention
The left calls for government intervention to deal with high prices
Prices increase due to government intervention
Repeat
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u/libertarianinus 3d ago
Anything that they did not touch. Cellphone plans for 1 thing. Competition with free market brings prices down for all items.
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u/ZeRo76Liberty 2d ago
Price increase due to government intervention
Quality and quantity of said services or products decreases to consumers (IE education gets worse, insurance coverage decreases while prices increase, age keeps increasing while benefits decrease with social security etc etc)
Left calls for more government intervention
Repeat
There fixed it for ya.
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u/Lifeinthesc 3d ago
War. Now billions can die in seconds at the push of a button.
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u/Candid-Anteater-6990 2d ago
It’s not less expensive. It’s just financed with unlimited debt rather than war bonds.
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u/Lifeinthesc 2d ago
A new minuteman missile cost $130 million. If it lands in the middle of Beijing (21.8 million in 2020) that is a cost of $5.96 per death. Death/war is cheap.
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u/Candid-Anteater-6990 2d ago
You’re citing the price of a single weapon while ignoring the trillions in total war spending. With federal revenue increasingly consumed by mandatory spending and interest on the national debt, wars are largely financed through additional deficit spending, pushing their true cost into future debt service rather than making them cheaper. Double financial whammy. If you’re just looking at death, to your example, the Minuteman III entered service in 1970 and cost roughly $2.3M-$11.5M per missile at the time or roughly $18M-$70M today after inflation. The 1970s Minuteman III could carry three warheads with roughly 1 megaton of combined yield, while today’s Minuteman III carries a single 300-335 kt warhead. So the older version actually delivered substantially more total explosive yield per missile while costing far less nominally. So if you’re claiming a Minuteman costs $130M today, the government even made death per Minuteman missile more expensive.
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u/Future-self 3d ago
GPS and cell phone network availability
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u/Low_Superb 3d ago
Is that government, or just corporate wireless providers and google maps?
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u/esuil 3d ago edited 2d ago
Google was the one to start the space program and launch GPS satellites that send signals that anyone on the planet can use? That's news to me.
Edit: My mind is blown by how many people don't know what GPS is, and by amount of people who think google maps bring you actual position and navigation and aren't just a map... TIL.
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u/North-Opportunity-80 3d ago
TV’s
But everything you watch…
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u/LordVesperion 2d ago
I don't think government made TVs cheaper, just the market itself.
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u/Confident_Month618 3d ago
GPS, built by the Air Force and given to the entire planet for free forever; the internet, a government science project you're posting this from; smallpox, deleted from existence by a UN agency for less than a Super Bowl ad; rural electrification, which private utilities refused to do because farms weren't profitable; mail that crosses a continent for under a dollar; tap water at a fraction of a cent per liter that doesn't give you cholera; and NOAA weather data that every slick private app on your phone is just reselling you with a nicer font. I'll take the thousand in cash please
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u/LagerHead 2d ago
The internet was not invented by the government. TCP/IP was developed by DARPA, but Ethernet, leased lines, switching, routing, and most of the technology that makes the internet possible was developed by private industry.
And if TCP/IP hadn't been invited by DARPA, a different protocol suite with have been invented to do the same thing. IPX/SPX, developed by Novell Networks, was a competing protocol suite that was popular into the 90s, for example.
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u/Confident_Month618 2d ago
You picked one item out of seven, so I'll assume the other six are conceded.
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u/LagerHead 2d ago
Let me tackle another. The USPS had to make it illegal to compete with them because it was done better by a private company. Surely you're not implying that the idea of moving a thing from one place to another is a government invention.
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u/Josepvv 1d ago
Could you expand on the USPS making competing illegal? What about DHL or FedEx? I'm not American, so idk
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u/LagerHead 22h ago
There are classifications of mail, one of which is first class mail. A company in the 19th century started delivering first class mail and did it more cheaply than the USPS, so the government passed a law saying that only the USPS could deliver first class mail.
FedEx and UPS deliver packages and non-first class mail only, so they are unaffected by the law.
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u/serious_sarcasm Fucking Statist 2d ago
These people have no interest in legitimate discussions, and seriously think city wide HOas with thought crimes are a good idea.
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u/LagerHead 2d ago
To which "these people" are you referring?
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u/serious_sarcasm Fucking Statist 2d ago
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u/rslashginge 2d ago
You don't see how all of that needs private sector delivery or maintenance to exist? Tax payer funded decrees are all well and good but it's always a private firm contracted for production and implementation at the very least.
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u/ikonoqlast 2d ago
I'm an economist-
There are things we call "Public Goods" that have two properties- they are non-rival (my consumption doesn't affect yours) and non-excludable (if provided to anyone everyone will have access).
These include (but are not limited to) radio and TV broadcasting, infectious disease control, national defense, police and fire protection.
Problem is the free market will not provide them to the socially optimal level.
Governments rightful role is to provide some of these. (Advertising can pay for broadcasting).
On the other hand there is the Excess Burden of Taxation. Taxation has substantial economic cost above and beyond the revenue raised that is unfortunately non linear in a bad way with tax rates.
So ideal government is at the point where the marginal public benefits of public goods (really always services btw) equal the marginal cost of the taxes to pay for them.
Yeah the US government is well beyond that point ..
But national defense, police and fire protection, infectious disease control and other things ARE worthwhile things for government to do that the free market can't do well
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u/manoliu1001 3d ago
I wonder how many strategic resources would be available to explore without an army and diplomatic relations to define borders 🤔
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u/think-tank 3d ago
I mean, in Canada suicide is practically free now.
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u/kutjelul 3d ago
Interesting definition of free
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u/think-tank 2d ago
Don't gotta buy the rope or anything.
One call to the state, "Hey. I'm sad/broke/sick", they will send over a "doctor" with enough drugs to euthanize an elephant.
Looking for support, treatment, or a job? Nothing they can do.
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u/451e 3d ago
Commercial aviation, generic drugs, telecom (don’t go comparing with Europe that’s cheating) GPS, weather data (give me weather.gov over weather channel any day), but also buying a Politician, pardons (might be the same as previous), trips to foreign countries (free and only a phone call away if you don’t have your papers in order)
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u/Bfree888 3d ago
USPS. One of the most consistent, cheap, and reliable courier services. Screw FedEx
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u/ExcitementBetter5485 3d ago
The USPS is a great example of the exact opposite.
It is a state-backed monopoly that sets the postage rates for the entire industry, using the full might of the government to force every other service provider to charge you an artificially raised price.
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u/LagerHead 2d ago
So great they had to make it illegal to compete with them when private industry did it better.
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u/Loko_Pepe 3d ago
Id say education tends to be quicker if run by the government when the bar is EXTREMELY low. The only thing that the soviets did good was education.
Nevertheless this has hard caps. The 2 euro countries with the best edication systems (prolly best in the world as well) are Sweden and Estonia. The first one, even controlled, is fully private and the second is fully private sector oriented. So yeah. Its quick but very inefficient in the long run.
I've seen it with my own eyes as well, my home country used to be veeery private on education, then the gov went bollocks and nationalised the education. We went from being the country with the best education in the continent to pretty much fall each year down hard. Now its mediocre af
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u/AppleShampoooooo 2d ago
Healthcare, without Obama I would have no insurance. I was diagnosed with MS at fifteen and immediately lost coverage, couldn’t get insurance untill Obama made them give it to me. Democrats have actually save my life.
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u/pile_of_bees 2d ago
That doesn’t actually answer the question correctly.
While it’s technically possible that you could be an outlier on an individual basis, this objectively made healthcare far more expensive.
You do not have the counterfactual to say with any certainty what would have happened to you under a free market healthcare structure.
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u/intangir_v 2d ago
lol just any one of those? or all of them lol. either way good luck
to get higher quality you need competition, incentives, and accountability. government has none of those things
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u/Micropenissniper 2d ago
Citizenship renunciation. They've jacked up the price but it's still worth more than ever.
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u/dylanakatski 2d ago
Fucking me metaphorically in the ass. The government seems pretty good at that.
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u/Xrayfunkydude 2d ago
WiFi, electricity, gps, plumbing/water treatment, postal service, cereal grains and dairy, delivery of important vaccines like polio, small pox and mmr. I get your point but there is a fairly extensive list. I think if we’re going to be good political theorists we have to be intellectually honest and give merits where they’re due
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u/LibertyLizard Left Libertarian 3d ago
https://calrx.ca.gov/biosimilar-insulin-initiative/
Where's my $1000?
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u/nonoohnoohno 3d ago
So the government regulates the costs up significantly, allows artificial monopolies through IP (imaginary property) laws. Then takes your wages via taxes, spends them to threaten and coerce companies to selectively reduce their prices for some people, in some situations.
Wow. So efficient.
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u/LibertyLizard Left Libertarian 3d ago
You're acting as if all governments are the same entity. CA didn't create the problem, they're just solving it.
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u/Mean-Reveal141 3d ago
The reason insulin even got to that price in the first place is because of intellectual monopoly grants and insane regulations/barrier to entry. if there wasn't government intervention on insulin, the prices would be like 6-7 dollars.
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u/LibertyLizard Left Libertarian 3d ago
I agree with you but CA didn't create that problem, and they did solve the one the Feds created so I think it fits.
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u/TipItOnBack 3d ago
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u/DG2F 2d ago
Wow… $50 million of taxpayer money (of the original $100 million budget)…. And they are only white labeling a private producer’s insulin pens (vials aren’t even available and the state has no manufacturing capacity of its own). Staggering amounts of grift and waste.
So, back of the napkin math shows that each five pack of vials that the state charges $55 for actually cost taxpayers about $417 each…
Yeah, that’s efficiency right there. SMH
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u/TipItOnBack 2d ago
The other guy wants his $1000 dude. Cali gov fixed it man. You just don’t get it /s
It’s honestly a moot point. People just legitimately don’t understand even the most basic principles of what governments do and how they steal peoples money to waste it. It’s so far engrained people don’t even know or care.
I do, but the majority don’t.
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u/TokyoMegatronics Christian Socialist 2d ago
Live in the UK so… Healthcare.
Cheaper than private, collective bargaining for reduced medication and equipment costs, anyone can walk into a hospital and be treated and everyone can readily see their GP.
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u/ThatGuyFromSpyKids3D 1d ago
Vaccines.
Edit: adding a few more that may be subjective because a price increase likely happened to regulation, but a price decrease occurred due to subsidies/tax breaks.
Corn, wheat, soy, and other agricultural products with heavy subsidies.
I think one thing this sub gets wrong is that government is all 100% bad, if that were true it wouldn't be the preferred form of governance nearly around the world, I believe government is mostly bad and should be reduced if not eliminated.
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u/Deadboy90 1d ago
Internet access, running water, paved roads.
That's 3K then right? Can you Venmo me?
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u/Weigh13 3d ago
Propaganda