It’s hard to find a place to turn where we don’t deal with a reality distorted by government.
We’re all concerned about runaway costs of health care and health insurance. What’s behind it?
In 1960, 50% of our health expenditures were out of pocket and 50% were OPM (Other People’s Money – Insurance, Employers, Government).
Today, 12% of our health care expenditures are out of pocket and 88% are Other People’s Money.
According to Harvard economist Robert Barro, the current persistent high unemployment rate, helping drag out this recession, is traceable to the unprecedented extension of unemployment benefits from the normal 26 weeks to almost two years. The argument that we are currently in unchartered territory and must do the unusual is not true.
Barro points out that unemployment in the 1982 recession reached 10.8% - higher than today.
The perhaps not so funny joke that neurotics build castles in the air and psychotics move into them is worth thinking about.
The ability to succeed is predicated on both freedom and having good information on which to make decisions.
As we distort, through government policies, reality around us, and citizens increasingly get bad information for matters about which they have important decisions to make, we’re not going to recover.