Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
The problem isn’t polarization; the problem is neither flavor of the status quo is actually solving any of the nation’s most pressing system problems.
As I write this at 5 pm (Left Coast) November 6, the election results are unknown. While various media are trumpeting this as “the most important election of our lives,” the less eyeball-catching, emotion-triggering reality is this election is nothing but another distraction. No matter who “wins,” none of our systemic problems will be addressed, much less solved.
Does either party have the will or coherent grasp of what’s broken to fix America’s healthcare mess? No. The Democrats’ “solution” is to take the bloated, ineffective Medicare system that incentivizes blatant fraud, overbilling and profiteering and increase the sickcare cartels’ power and profits via “Medicare for All.”
This is akin to giving defense contractors the power to set the Pentagon budget. Oh, wait, they already have that power.
In the exact same fashion, Medicare’s soaring budget is set by profiteering’ cartels. Nothing will change in “Medicare for All” except taxes will go up and the cartels will skim additional billions in rentier profits.
The Republican solution is to call quasi-monopolies and cartels “markets.”Since turning everything into a market solves all problems, that’s the “market-based “solution.” But since healthcare is run by cartels, which fix the “market” to their own benefit, there really is no “market” in healthcare, and nobody’s interested in establishing one because that would crater cartel profits.
As I’ve noted many times, our dysfunctional healthcare will bankrupt the nation all by itself. Sickcare Will Bankrupt the Nation–And Soon (2011)
U.S. Healthcare Isn’t Broken–It’s Fixed (May 16, 2018)
How about a systemic solution for opioid addiction? If you believe either party has a solution,” you need to reduce your Ibogaine intake. Opioids and other addictions (like social media and mobile phones) are immensely profitable and so the cartels and monopolies profiting from addictions fund politicos in both parties to insure their profits aren’t reduced.
How about a dysfunctional weapons procurement system? Both parties love trillion-dollar weapons programs as long as the money sluices into enough Congressional districts. So what if the weapon system is defective, already outdated, poorly designed, the wrong system for the challenges ahead or simply not cost-effective– as long as the campaign contributions are gushing into D.C. and politicos can brag about “jobs” created by building failed weaponry, nothing will change. The Pentagon can beg Congress to stop building the darn thing and the Pentagon will be ignored: there’s simply too much money at stake to care whether it actually serves military needs.
How about soaring debt loads on every sector of the economy? Money that goes to pay interest can’t be invested or spent elsewhere, and that starves the economy of productive investment. The super-wealthy own much of the debt and receive much of the interest income. This is a systemic problem that isn’t viewed as a problem because the super-wealthy own the political process.
The “solution” to crushing student loan debt ($1.4 trillion and counting) is to transfer the entire debt to the taxpayers, meaning the federal government issues another $1.4 trillion in debt to pay the super-wealthy who own all the student loans. Nice for the super-wealthy and politicos, not so nice for future taxpayers burdened with trillions more in debt.
Neither party can accept that higher education is a failed, dysfunctional system. And so the “solution” is borrow another couple trillion and pay interest to the super-wealthy who own the debt, all for an “education” that often has little value in either the economy or the debt-serf students’ lives.
The problem isn’t polarization; the problem is neither flavor of the status quo is actually solving any of the nation’s most pressing system problems. This is why we’re coming apart at the seams: problems are being left unaddressed and so they only become more entrenched and destructive.
* * *
My new mystery The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake is a ridiculously affordable $1.29 (Kindle) or $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF) My book Money and Work Unchained is now $6.95 for the Kindle ebook and $15 for the print edition. Read the first section for free in PDF format. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
via RSS https://ift.tt/2F85KWr Tyler Durden