To politically balance my previous suggestion to cut US medical spending in half, let me now suggest we cut US military spending in half. I haven’t researched this subject anywhere near as much as medicine, so I can’t argue as strongly. But the simple argument seems compelling: The US with
I entirely disagree. Coverage mandates should largely be abolished, starting with non-medical, non-science practices like psychology, psychiatry, acupuncture, and chiropractic. Allow people to buy plans that provide only catastrophic coverages, just like one can buy only liability car insurance.
Move from licensing to certification and let competition flourish. Abolish the medical cartels.
Let any company build a hospital without state approval of "need," which is just protectionism for current hospital owners.
Let other practitioners compete with doctors and dentists. There should be far more nurse practitioners and dental hygienists not under the thumbs of doctors. Within my lifetime it was illegal for optometrists to do eye exams, which ophthalmologists, for self-interested reasons, said would be dangerous. It has not turned out to be dangerous, just less expensive. Now you can get an exam for free at Costco that might cost you $150 or more at an ophthalmologist.
Abolish drug laws and restore free choice. Instantly drugs become very competitively priced and efficiently delivered. In Mexico, to offer a nearby example, most drugs are prepackaged, so there isn't the massive waste of labor for counting out pills in US pharmacies. When pills are prepackaged the clerk need not even been a pharmacist. That doesn't prevent the consumer from getting advice from a doctor about what to take, but it's not necessary to return to the doctor when you need a refill, which now costs Americans billions a year.
Remove regulations that inhibit direct-to-consumer medical tests. Again, in Mexico you can get a wide variety of scans and bodily fluids tests at low prices. For instance, a combination mammogram-bone density test can be obtained without appointment for 310 pesos, which is presently less than $18. No doctor required.
End the cartel monopoly over education. Doctors get to control how many doctors and dentists can practice, creating a self-interested incentive to restrict the number of graduates. American doctors make far more money than doctors in most European countries, and this is not because they do demonstrably better work.
Revert the government role in medicines to regulating potency and purity.
That's a start, and not draconian unless you are an overpaid medical specialist.
To be clear, I didn't mean that the military recruits substantially from the less productive half of the American population, I meant that presumably it would be the lesss productive half of the US military that would be fired/attritioned out of the military in Robin's proposal.
Also, I don't think I reasonably implied that the military strongly competes with prisons and mental institutions for its recruits. Quite the contrary, I mentioned the latter two to illustrate how stark the options are for more boundedly rational citizens: folks who have trouble maintaining the economic planning and foresight necessary to maintain an apartment, save for retirement, or have a good work performance if they face penalties no more severe than fire-at-will. I suspect we'd have a consequentially better society with a stronger (but opt-outable) paternalist structure. The military currently seems to me to be the least extremely limiting/stigmatizing of the three public sets of institutions that provide relatively strong paternalism for adults that need it.
The military is actually reasonably selective, and while it does recruit substantially from the bottom half (although for only a minority of its headcount) entrance requirements largely exclude the bottom third, so it's not strongly competing with prisons and mental institutions.
Robin,The military is also a place where more boundedly rational people can have simpler environments in which to operate, in a society that doesn't seem to much fund those programs otherwise (the other spaces are prisons and mental institutions). Something to keep in mind when halving military spending: we may have to do something with that less productive have other than allowing them to increase social risk as they operate unmediated in the civilian population.
In similar vein, I think the military's strongly deviant benefits and job security might be capitalists buying out violent but economically unintelligent people, in the similar way that highly paid legal work for law firms mostly to protect against other lawyers might be capitalists buying out excellent arguers/propagandists who also have limited economic aptitude or interest. May also be a factor to be considered when making adjustments to size of the military population or its benefits.
A lot of unnecessary spending in the military: bands, ceremonies, General's secretaries, government employees hired to do nothing except take a pay check. Sure not a lot of money however if added up I bet it could make a difference - how can we get people in power to take a look at this?
I think you're missing part of the point. You've got the cart before the horse.
If you take a typical American two car family, you can easily make an economic/financial case that cutting their car costs in half will be of major economic benefit, especially over the long run. You can also point out that it's not as difficult as they might think to only be able to use one car and perhaps rent a car for specific situations that absolutely require a second car, such as one driver needing to drive out of town for a long trip.
However, you can't start with "What if we cut your car expenses in half?" and then expect them to see the "obvious" benefits to losing the second car. You have to start by convincing them that they're fine with one car. Once they're ok with that idea, you can easily convince them to cut their car expenses in half, because at that point it will make sense to them.
In a similar fashion, you'll have to convince the American people that it's just fine for the US to not be in control of what happens militarily outside of North America. Convince them to not demand we do something the next time some dictatorship invades someone else. Convince them that it's ok if China, or Iran, or North Korea, takes over whichever neighbors it wants to. Once you've accomplished that task, it becomes a simple matter to cut the US defense budget down to the EU level.
The reason for current US military spending isn't just economic and defense benefits for the US, although those do exist. The reason is what US voters expect the US to do with it's military, which is a much larger role. Change the expectations and the budget can be easily cut.
You can't change the expectations of the voters by cutting the budget in half. You have to cut the budget in half by changing the expectations of the voters. That task is of course complicated by the possibility that the voters may prefer whatever you want to call the utility they get when the US is a lone superpower to the utility of the smaller federal budget.
For an extensive and detailed analysis of where we are and some of the near-future possibilities in US military strength and relations from a world economic and social standpoint, I'd suggest "The Shield of Achilles", by Philip Bobbitt.
And for the record, there are two adults and four children in my household and we do fine with one car in a semi-rural area. :)
Buzz, state pension plans are a combination of transfer and forced saving. The forced saving has little long term effect, as people can compensate via other savings choices. The transfer is hard to evaluate, as it is not clear what would measure success for them.
Who cares whether it would be "Hansonian"? What matters is whether its effects would be good. Robin's a very clever chap, but I don't see any reason to think he can pronounce authoritatively on that question. (And I bet he doesn't either.)
Those are some pretty strong words. Lying? And you know that based on what, exactly?
Feldstein could be wrong. But lying? I don't think so.
Feldstein's paper is available at NBER.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the SS "surplus" is not anywhere near 1/2 of SS revenues. Thus, if we cut those revenues in half, with a corresponding cut in benefits, we'd still be ahead of the game, economy wise.
Recent military adventurism has not contributed to America looking strong
I entirely disagree. Coverage mandates should largely be abolished, starting with non-medical, non-science practices like psychology, psychiatry, acupuncture, and chiropractic. Allow people to buy plans that provide only catastrophic coverages, just like one can buy only liability car insurance.
Move from licensing to certification and let competition flourish. Abolish the medical cartels.
Let any company build a hospital without state approval of "need," which is just protectionism for current hospital owners.
Let other practitioners compete with doctors and dentists. There should be far more nurse practitioners and dental hygienists not under the thumbs of doctors. Within my lifetime it was illegal for optometrists to do eye exams, which ophthalmologists, for self-interested reasons, said would be dangerous. It has not turned out to be dangerous, just less expensive. Now you can get an exam for free at Costco that might cost you $150 or more at an ophthalmologist.
Abolish drug laws and restore free choice. Instantly drugs become very competitively priced and efficiently delivered. In Mexico, to offer a nearby example, most drugs are prepackaged, so there isn't the massive waste of labor for counting out pills in US pharmacies. When pills are prepackaged the clerk need not even been a pharmacist. That doesn't prevent the consumer from getting advice from a doctor about what to take, but it's not necessary to return to the doctor when you need a refill, which now costs Americans billions a year.
Remove regulations that inhibit direct-to-consumer medical tests. Again, in Mexico you can get a wide variety of scans and bodily fluids tests at low prices. For instance, a combination mammogram-bone density test can be obtained without appointment for 310 pesos, which is presently less than $18. No doctor required.
End the cartel monopoly over education. Doctors get to control how many doctors and dentists can practice, creating a self-interested incentive to restrict the number of graduates. American doctors make far more money than doctors in most European countries, and this is not because they do demonstrably better work.
Revert the government role in medicines to regulating potency and purity.
That's a start, and not draconian unless you are an overpaid medical specialist.
The Cato Institute calls for a 50% cut to the U.S. military: http://www.csmonitor.com/20...
To be clear, I didn't mean that the military recruits substantially from the less productive half of the American population, I meant that presumably it would be the lesss productive half of the US military that would be fired/attritioned out of the military in Robin's proposal.
Also, I don't think I reasonably implied that the military strongly competes with prisons and mental institutions for its recruits. Quite the contrary, I mentioned the latter two to illustrate how stark the options are for more boundedly rational citizens: folks who have trouble maintaining the economic planning and foresight necessary to maintain an apartment, save for retirement, or have a good work performance if they face penalties no more severe than fire-at-will. I suspect we'd have a consequentially better society with a stronger (but opt-outable) paternalist structure. The military currently seems to me to be the least extremely limiting/stigmatizing of the three public sets of institutions that provide relatively strong paternalism for adults that need it.
Hopefully,
The military is actually reasonably selective, and while it does recruit substantially from the bottom half (although for only a minority of its headcount) entrance requirements largely exclude the bottom third, so it's not strongly competing with prisons and mental institutions.
Robin,The military is also a place where more boundedly rational people can have simpler environments in which to operate, in a society that doesn't seem to much fund those programs otherwise (the other spaces are prisons and mental institutions). Something to keep in mind when halving military spending: we may have to do something with that less productive have other than allowing them to increase social risk as they operate unmediated in the civilian population.
In similar vein, I think the military's strongly deviant benefits and job security might be capitalists buying out violent but economically unintelligent people, in the similar way that highly paid legal work for law firms mostly to protect against other lawyers might be capitalists buying out excellent arguers/propagandists who also have limited economic aptitude or interest. May also be a factor to be considered when making adjustments to size of the military population or its benefits.
A lot of unnecessary spending in the military: bands, ceremonies, General's secretaries, government employees hired to do nothing except take a pay check. Sure not a lot of money however if added up I bet it could make a difference - how can we get people in power to take a look at this?
Whoops, sorry about that. It's here.
I have posted Greg Cochran's comments http://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/2007/11/07/greg-cochran-on-military-spending/here.
Robin,
I think you're missing part of the point. You've got the cart before the horse.
If you take a typical American two car family, you can easily make an economic/financial case that cutting their car costs in half will be of major economic benefit, especially over the long run. You can also point out that it's not as difficult as they might think to only be able to use one car and perhaps rent a car for specific situations that absolutely require a second car, such as one driver needing to drive out of town for a long trip.
However, you can't start with "What if we cut your car expenses in half?" and then expect them to see the "obvious" benefits to losing the second car. You have to start by convincing them that they're fine with one car. Once they're ok with that idea, you can easily convince them to cut their car expenses in half, because at that point it will make sense to them.
In a similar fashion, you'll have to convince the American people that it's just fine for the US to not be in control of what happens militarily outside of North America. Convince them to not demand we do something the next time some dictatorship invades someone else. Convince them that it's ok if China, or Iran, or North Korea, takes over whichever neighbors it wants to. Once you've accomplished that task, it becomes a simple matter to cut the US defense budget down to the EU level.
The reason for current US military spending isn't just economic and defense benefits for the US, although those do exist. The reason is what US voters expect the US to do with it's military, which is a much larger role. Change the expectations and the budget can be easily cut.
You can't change the expectations of the voters by cutting the budget in half. You have to cut the budget in half by changing the expectations of the voters. That task is of course complicated by the possibility that the voters may prefer whatever you want to call the utility they get when the US is a lone superpower to the utility of the smaller federal budget.
For an extensive and detailed analysis of where we are and some of the near-future possibilities in US military strength and relations from a world economic and social standpoint, I'd suggest "The Shield of Achilles", by Philip Bobbitt.
And for the record, there are two adults and four children in my household and we do fine with one car in a semi-rural area. :)
Buzz, state pension plans are a combination of transfer and forced saving. The forced saving has little long term effect, as people can compensate via other savings choices. The transfer is hard to evaluate, as it is not clear what would measure success for them.
I care.
Who cares whether it would be "Hansonian"? What matters is whether its effects would be good. Robin's a very clever chap, but I don't see any reason to think he can pronounce authoritatively on that question. (And I bet he doesn't either.)
Sorry. But you could end the argument with your authority. Would a cut in SS benefits be Hansonian?
J and Buzz, this is not the place to argue about social security.
Those are some pretty strong words. Lying? And you know that based on what, exactly?
Feldstein could be wrong. But lying? I don't think so.
Feldstein's paper is available at NBER.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the SS "surplus" is not anywhere near 1/2 of SS revenues. Thus, if we cut those revenues in half, with a corresponding cut in benefits, we'd still be ahead of the game, economy wise.