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Rade
Regulation is the tool the big banks do to crush the little banks. Take a look at the Dodd-Frank regulations that were supposed to fix the problems that led to the Great Recession. Instead it has led to a massive dying out of small banks while the bigger banks got bigger. I feel like you have this juvenile idea of how government works. If government has the power to control something of value, then the monied interests will pretty soon take control of it.
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Big banks profit from deregulation. Bank consolidations, like any monopolization, occur when economic hardships strike and the large entities leverage their position to destroy unprotected smaller corporations. Look at the American Industrial Revolution for evidence that it was great to be a tycoon during an era without regulation, but it sucked to work for a tycoon. There is a reason why Teddy Roosevelt's presidency attempted so many reforms.
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Rade
>Education: Lots of people in America are lazy and want a fast solution for nothing. Education is the long term investment in the country's future. College has got to be cheaper. For-profit schools need to go away. Public schools need to be improved, and any private religious school who wants tax dollars can go fuck themselves. Any kid who applies themselves should be incentivized with cheap higher education, and quality job opportunities.
I particularly agree with your statement that education needs to be seen as a long-term investment. I don't see a problem with private, for-profit schools, but it is inappropriate for them to take public funds, as they do not have to abide by government oversight nor will they educate all citizens. I do value the establishment clause, too, but that is a side issue.
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Rade
College would be cheaper if the government stopped subsidizing it. Fewer people need to be going to traditional colleges. The high price of college is the result of artificially inflated demand. For some dumb reason we told every kid in the country they just needed to go get a degree in any old thing and they'd have a cush life with a great job. That's just not true. Public schools are monopolies. Why do you think a school monopoly is going to be better for consumers than a bank monopoly? The voucher system seems like the only reasonable answer here. Most of the concerns about the voucher system can be solved with two stipulations. First, private schools that accept vouchers must meet the same educational criteria as public schools have today. Secondly, any school that accepts a voucher cannot charge any additional $ for tuition. If you wanted to go a step further start taxing schools that do not accept the vouchers, encouraging the upper-middle class to move their kids into the voucher schools and making sure they maintain decent funding. I'm a pretty staunch atheist myself, but I've come around to supporting private religious schools. Why? Because some of the best private schools are Catholic schools. I might be okay with regulating voucher schools to say they can't have a litmus test for admission, meaning a Catholic school must admit any student even if they're not Catholic. Secondly, if religious primary schools result in worse outcomes because of bad science education or whatever, then the market will sort that out because those people will not be able to get good jobs.
Meh. College will not be cheaper if you have fewer students attending, as you are ignoring overhead costs like buildings, instructors, instructional supplies/equipment/curriculum. There is something to be said for mass production, even if there are flaws in applying a business model to a human service. I don't know that the statistics will support that private schools are the best schools--you'd be surprised at how good your state test averages would look if you only allowed select kids in your school. As far as applying market theory toward things like STEM, there would be unacceptable business and national defense repercussions toward letting a generation or more of students receive religious indoctrination in lieu of education.
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Here again the government is the cause of the increased cost of health care. The government let the AMA stop our country from opening medical schools for literally DECADES. Further, the AMA continues to artificially keep the number of all forms of medical practitioners low so that wages stay sky high. I generally support unions, but the AMA is the most dangerous union in our country because the government has given it too much power. As I said I'm generally fine with unions, because the free market may result in the creation of unions. What I don't support is the government giving unions (such as the AMA) special consideration.
Want to improve health care? We need a single payer system like Canada, Australia, Western European nations. If you want to see more people go into medicine, creating more demand for med schools, then it would be best not to replace evolution with intelligent design and biology with prayer circles.
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Rade
All of these problems would largely be solved by doing what I already suggested: tax externalities such as pollution. Further, stop trading with countries that don't similarly tax pollution. We needn't bother subsidizing contraception or anything else. Let's just start by not giving people more money to have children. No deductions for children. No welfare for extra mouths. If you can't care for your children either don't have them or give them away to someone who can take care of them.
Countries/communities with high poverty have high birth rates; extended families are needed as a means of providing assistance to each other. That said, if you want political stability, you have to provide economic stability. Even the ancient Romans knew that if you remove the bread and circuses, the wealthy would lose everything when the lower class revolts.