Government manipulates all markets, driving up prices; adds 6 percent to home prices

A recent CBO report estimated that the government spends about $300 billion to intervene in the housing market each year. That's based on a range of activities, from direct subsidies to homebuyers, to the mortgage interest tax deduction, and the backstop of Fannie and Freddie.

And thus it's no surprise that the housing market doesn't work like other markets, and that we had a major bubble there. Even now, Goldman Sachs estimates, the government is adding at least 5% to the cost of each home, through its various "affordability" measures.

But it's not just housing. Virtually every important sector of the economy is being manipulated in some way.

Rationing of medical care means blindness, death

In this piece, in American Thnker, a practicing physician explains how rationing of medical care can mean lights out, or death, for those over 65.

"For those of you who are over 65, this bill in its present form might be lethal for you. People in England over 59 cannot receive stents for their coronary arteries. The government wants to mimic the British plan. For those of you younger, it will still mean restriction of the care that you and your children receive."

In health care, you pay more but also get more

"We spend so much more on health care, even relative to other advances, mostly because it is worth so much more to us. Similarly, we spend so much more on computers, compact discs, HDTV, and those wonderful one shot espresso makers that make it like having a barista in your own home. Interestingly, we also spend a ton more on these other items now than we did in 1950 because none of these existed in 1950 (well, you could have hired a skilled Italian man to live with you and make you coffee twice a day, so I guess that existed and the price has in fact come down; my bad, analogy shot). OK, you get the point. Health care today is a combination of stuff that has existed for a while and a set of entirely new things that look like (and really are) miracles from the lens of even a few years ago. We spend more on health care because it's better. Say it with me again, slowly - this is a good thing, not a bad thing."

(snip)

"...if one more person cites soaring health care costs as an indictment of the free market, when it is in fact a staggering achievement of the free market, I'm going to rupture their appendix and send them to a queue in the UK to get it fixed. Last we'll see of them."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/23/health_care_mythology_97552.html

Wal-Mart endorses benefit mandate to hurt Target

"A couple of years ago, I shared a cab to the airport with a Wal-Mart lobbyist, who told me that Wal-Mart supports an “employer mandate.” An employer mandate is a legal requirement that employers provide a government-defined package of health benefits to their workers. Only Hawaii and Massachusetts have enacted such a law.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Wal-Mart is a capitalist success story. At the time of our conversation, this lobbyist was helping Wal-Mart fight off employer-mandate legislation in dozens of states. Those measures were specifically designed to hurt Wal-Mart, and were underwritten by the unions and union shops that were losing jobs and business to Wal-Mart.

But it all became clear when the lobbyist explained the reason for Wal-Mart’s position: “Target’s health-benefits costs are lower.”

I have no idea what Target’s or Wal-Mart’s health-benefits costs are. Let’s say that Target spends $5,000 per worker on health benefits and Wal-Mart spends $10,000. An employer mandate that requires both retail giants to spend $9,000 per worker would have no effect on Wal-Mart. But it would cripple one of Wal-Mart’s chief competitors.

So yesterday’s news that Wal-Mart is publicly endorsing a “sensible and equitable” employer mandate — i.e., a mandate that hurts Target but not Wal-Mart — didn’t come as a surprise to me. It merely confirmed what I learned in a cab on the way to the airport: Wal-Mart has gone native. That great symbol of the benefits of free-market competition now joins its erstwhile enemies among the legions of rent-seeking weasels who would rather run to government for protection than earn their keep by making people’s lives better."

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/07/01/wal-mart-supports-employer-mandate/