Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

STFU

[THE_WIZARD_]

There used to be nearly 8000 publicly-traded companies in the United States.

Today the number is half of that.

In sector after sector, industry after industry, a few megacorporations now dominate entire markets.

In the realm of health insurance, as just one example, the seven largest companies (with Kaiser and UnitedHealth at the top) have more than a majority share of the entire health insurance market.

Some health insurance companies no longer offer or provide actual health insurance; they simply manage Medicare and Medicaid accounts, so long as they are large enough to play all the bureaucratic games of red-tape demanded by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

These companies would be quite happy if ALL health services, eventually, were funded by the government and provided by a few politically-connected crony government contractors, and no one else. Soviet-style health care, anyone?

One finds similar stories in the realms of Big Pharma, Big Banking, Big Tech, Big Energy, Big Ag, etc: Fewer publicly traded companies, fewer alternatives, little competition, and much of the market share controlled by a few crony megacorporations. What little market share is untapped by the big crony companies are the scraps upon which a few small entrepreneurs feed.

What do all these various and different industries have in common? They are highly regulated.

Highly regulated industries, over time, have less and less competition because smaller businesses do not have the capital to spend on regulatory compliance — and the armies of lawyers, accountants, and bureaucratic consultants compliance requires.

The result of many regulations is something approximating a near-monopoly for a few crony megacorporations that have cozy insider connections with regulators, government bureaucrats, and elected officials.

For those of you who insist we need more regulations, not fewer -- for you progressives who shame and scold anyone who dares to suggest maybe we should scale back the administrative regulatory state -- those megacorporations thank you. You've made their monopolies possible, and they encourage you to keep up your activism and advocacy on their behalf. Progressive political elites, whose careers are funded by those crony megacorporations and their union allies, thank you too.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Communism here we come! Yeah! DSL, Front and CGVT will be ecstatic!

[Jeff Buchanan]

Tip of the iceberg, Wiz. But healthcare is a prime example of what over-regulation creates. It's almost a non-sequitur as there are legitimate calls for health care benefits managers - middle men in the health care industry - to be subject to regulations. What's going on here doesn't fit a fiscally conservative narrative. Health care is not a market based industry at present. The benefits managers have conspired to prevent free market capitalism to self-regulate pricing.

I was shocked at my EOB for some eye-drops I use. My Medicare insurance were billed nearly $1400 for frigging eye drops. They paid just under $1000, my supplemental insurance paid the rest save a $76 co-pay I paid. Insane.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Welcome to National Health Care my friend.

[THE_WIZARD_]

But who cares when there is JOY!!!!

[Dr. Strangelove]

Wiz and Jeff, reminiscing about 1938, when drugs (morphine mostly) were cheaper.

[Dr. Strangelove]

A vote for Trump is a vote to stop the damn chemtrails.

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Mike]

And everyone has the option to not buy any of that unlike food, gas, health insurance, cars, etc.

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Mike]

Literally hours after it happened.

[Mike]

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[Dr. Strangelove]

Well if we're going down the road of "inappropriate reactions to tragedy", boy oh boy, there's a pretty well-known one made by the forum's favorite man-child.

[Mike]

I don’t recall Trump having something like this happen on his watch.