Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare)

[Schlich]

That wasn't what I meant at all

I fail to see how else your comment fit into the context of this thread at the time it was made. Even if it wasn't what you meant, it was a pretty clear implication of what you said.

I guess if that's what you want it to mean your going to interpret it that way. Not at all what I meant but that doesn't fit your adgenda so your twisting it.

You could clarify by explaining what you meant.

[Diddy]

That wasn't what I meant at all

I fail to see how else your comment fit into the context of this thread at the time it was made. Even if it wasn't what you meant, it was a pretty clear implication of what you said.

I guess if that's what you want it to mean your going to interpret it that way. Not at all what I meant but that doesn't fit your adgenda so your twisting it.

You could clarify by explaining what you meant.

I could, but I doubt its matter you'd just twist it how you wanted.

[Schlich]

That wasn't what I meant at all

I fail to see how else your comment fit into the context of this thread at the time it was made. Even if it wasn't what you meant, it was a pretty clear implication of what you said.

I guess if that's what you want it to mean your going to interpret it that way. Not at all what I meant but that doesn't fit your adgenda so your twisting it.

You could clarify by explaining what you meant.

I could, but I doubt its matter you'd just twist it how you wanted.

I'm trying to work with you here.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

That wasn't what I meant at all

I fail to see how else your comment fit into the context of this thread at the time it was made. Even if it wasn't what you meant, it was a pretty clear implication of what you said.

I guess if that's what you want it to mean your going to interpret it that way. Not at all what I meant but that doesn't fit your adgenda so your twisting it.

You could clarify by explaining what you meant.

I could, but I doubt its matter you'd just twist it how you wanted.

I'm trying to work with you here.

[Cheddar Tom]

I wasn't sure if this got posted regarding Aetna...http://www.wsj.com/articles/aetna-warne ... 3?mod=mktw

Aetna Inc. told Justice Department antitrust officials in a letter early last month that if they sued to block its deal to acquire Humana Inc., it would immediately reduce its presence on the Affordable Care Act health-insurance exchanges and cancel a planned expansion.

[IMADreamer]

I wasn't sure if this got posted regarding Aetna...http://www.wsj.com/articles/aetna-warne ... 3?mod=mktw

Aetna Inc. told Justice Department antitrust officials in a letter early last month that if they sued to block its deal to acquire Humana Inc., it would immediately reduce its presence on the Affordable Care Act health-insurance exchanges and cancel a planned expansion.

I'm no lawyer but that seems kinda like extortion.

[docellis]

That wasn't what I meant at all

I fail to see how else your comment fit into the context of this thread at the time it was made. Even if it wasn't what you meant, it was a pretty clear implication of what you said.

Maybe you can help me understand market socialism better. The obvious concern is if the means of production and allocation of capital were 100% Democratically controlled, would this mean every decision has to be put to a vote? That could lead to delays in implementing changes, or maybe some changes that only a minority want never get made ("tyranny of the majority"). Either of these things could create a black market since the primary market can't make supply meet demand.

Maybe it would work like a lot of corporations already do, with a board of directors that hires a CEO. The difference would be the board would be elected Democratically by all voters instead of just shareholders. That would basically end up like a lot of city governments where voters elect the mayor and aldermen, and then they go and hire an administrator to run the day to day operations. Is that the idea or something else? I have a lot of questions about how that would work as well though. Help me understand how this would work more in practice.

I think you're getting at the basic gist of it. There are a lot of different ideas of how to organize businesses democratically that are unfortunately outside the scope of this thread and, if I'm being honest, currently outside the scope of my own understanding. I'm learning more every day though. Direct democracy is not a commonly-advocated-for system, if I understand correctly. I think most theories at the very least operate under the premise which you alluded to, would be to elect a board--with or without a CEO-- that each represent people affected by that corporation or industry, including workers (i.e. a labor union), consumers, activist groups, interest groups, etc.

I don't know enough about how businesses operate on a day-to-day basis to give a more complex picture, but I do know that these things have been fleshed out extensively by socialist thinkers and that resources are out there. A couple of buzzwords you can google are mutualism and syndicalism. You might have to dig a little to find something accessible.

I don't think it would be easy, and maybe not even possible in our current economic climate - but if there was a way to dramatically increase the amount of worker cooperatives, that would likely create tons of market incentives while (ideally) shrinking that ever widening ratio between average CEO salary and average worker salary (which is pretty disgusting currently).

[pioneer98]

That wasn't what I meant at all

I fail to see how else your comment fit into the context of this thread at the time it was made. Even if it wasn't what you meant, it was a pretty clear implication of what you said.

Maybe you can help me understand market socialism better. The obvious concern is if the means of production and allocation of capital were 100% Democratically controlled, would this mean every decision has to be put to a vote? That could lead to delays in implementing changes, or maybe some changes that only a minority want never get made ("tyranny of the majority"). Either of these things could create a black market since the primary market can't make supply meet demand.

Maybe it would work like a lot of corporations already do, with a board of directors that hires a CEO. The difference would be the board would be elected Democratically by all voters instead of just shareholders. That would basically end up like a lot of city governments where voters elect the mayor and aldermen, and then they go and hire an administrator to run the day to day operations. Is that the idea or something else? I have a lot of questions about how that would work as well though. Help me understand how this would work more in practice.

I think you're getting at the basic gist of it. There are a lot of different ideas of how to organize businesses democratically that are unfortunately outside the scope of this thread and, if I'm being honest, currently outside the scope of my own understanding. I'm learning more every day though. Direct democracy is not a commonly-advocated-for system, if I understand correctly. I think most theories at the very least operate under the premise which you alluded to, would be to elect a board--with or without a CEO-- that each represent people affected by that corporation or industry, including workers (i.e. a labor union), consumers, activist groups, interest groups, etc.

I don't know enough about how businesses operate on a day-to-day basis to give a more complex picture, but I do know that these things have been fleshed out extensively by socialist thinkers and that resources are out there. A couple of buzzwords you can google are mutualism and syndicalism. You might have to dig a little to find something accessible.

I will read up a bit more on this topic...The thing that I can't get my head around is just the mom and pop that opens a restaurant. Or just the sole proprietor that start his own business of any kind. Are we saying their profits would be put to public use? If the mom and pop restaurant has to register and become a member of some larger publicly owned outfit it could be problematic. They might want to limit competition or something and not allow it. The Uber model where everyone is a contractor also becomes hard/impossible but my guess is that kind of thing wouldn't exist in this model.

[Schlich]

That wasn't what I meant at all

I fail to see how else your comment fit into the context of this thread at the time it was made. Even if it wasn't what you meant, it was a pretty clear implication of what you said.

Maybe you can help me understand market socialism better. The obvious concern is if the means of production and allocation of capital were 100% Democratically controlled, would this mean every decision has to be put to a vote? That could lead to delays in implementing changes, or maybe some changes that only a minority want never get made ("tyranny of the majority"). Either of these things could create a black market since the primary market can't make supply meet demand.

Maybe it would work like a lot of corporations already do, with a board of directors that hires a CEO. The difference would be the board would be elected Democratically by all voters instead of just shareholders. That would basically end up like a lot of city governments where voters elect the mayor and aldermen, and then they go and hire an administrator to run the day to day operations. Is that the idea or something else? I have a lot of questions about how that would work as well though. Help me understand how this would work more in practice.

I think you're getting at the basic gist of it. There are a lot of different ideas of how to organize businesses democratically that are unfortunately outside the scope of this thread and, if I'm being honest, currently outside the scope of my own understanding. I'm learning more every day though. Direct democracy is not a commonly-advocated-for system, if I understand correctly. I think most theories at the very least operate under the premise which you alluded to, would be to elect a board--with or without a CEO-- that each represent people affected by that corporation or industry, including workers (i.e. a labor union), consumers, activist groups, interest groups, etc.

I don't know enough about how businesses operate on a day-to-day basis to give a more complex picture, but I do know that these things have been fleshed out extensively by socialist thinkers and that resources are out there. A couple of buzzwords you can google are mutualism and syndicalism. You might have to dig a little to find something accessible.

I will read up a bit more on this topic...The thing that I can't get my head around is just the mom and pop that opens a restaurant. Or just the sole proprietor that start his own business of any kind. Are we saying their profits would be put to public use? If the mom and pop restaurant has to register and become a member of some larger publicly owned outfit it could be problematic. They might want to limit competition or something and not allow it. The Uber model where everyone is a contractor also becomes hard/impossible but my guess is that kind of thing wouldn't exist in this model.

It's kind of funny, I was out canvassing today in St Charles for a MO state rep and went to a gas station to get a drink and i found out that the gas station was employee-owned. I get the feeling that even for mom and pop shops its not as difficult as one would think. You can go ask them how they work it out if you'd like I actually asked the cashier and she said that ownership shares began after a certain amount of hours worked.

[pioneer98]

Employee owned is a little different than publicly owned. Which is fine, but they are different.

Hy Vee grocery stores are employee owned. In high school and after my first year after college I worked at an old Eagle grocery store, which was union. Since then Hy Vee has largely taken over and replaced Eagle, Jewel-Osco and other union chains here and around Iowa and other places. Hy Vee is very aggressive about hiring young people, and they have very high turnover at their entry level jobs (as you'd expect). Back in the day, the union stores paid a tiny bit more, but had a lot less turnover. The culture is/was very different. It seems like there is a career path with Hy Vee where you can actually move up if you do make it past the high turnover stage. Those kind of promotions happened less often at Eagle. Employee owned seems like a better model but neither is perfect, for sure. My concern with Hy Vee is that it says it is "employee owned" but obviously some employees own a lot more than others. It could just be a neat way to shield or hide the inequality they are creating, especially when such a high percentage of their workforce are only there a short time and don't get too invested in the company. Hy Vee though is a huge operation. Those issues wouldn't be as big of a problem with a single gas station, or a mom and pop restaurant.