>So you believe it would be in the best interests for the elderly poor to have no financial safety net?

I believe that on average each individual person is better capable of making decisions in their own best interest than you or I are.

>but do you happen to have the financial numbers handy to back up your claim that minority populations (which also happen to be disproportionately poor) contribute more toward SS than the more affluent white population?

[www.pbs.org]

> I remembered AT&T actually was broken up when I was in middle school

Yeah, AT&T was actually broken up. I meant AT&T to be one of the examples of industrial revolution monopolies, not of one that wasn't broken up by government intervention. That was poor writing on my part. Land line telecommunications is incredibly difficult to introduce free market pressures to because you can't even build land line communications without a government enforced monopoly. My only point about AT&T was how much that particular monopoly contributed to our society. I'm not even disagreeing with whether or not it should've been broken up, only pointing out that it wasn't all bad news. It resulted in massive benefits for all of us.

>What is the priority for a for-profit school?

To maximize their profits by providing the education product sought by the most parents.

>What is the priority for a religious school?

Same

>Re: College. Mass production lowers the overall cost of the product, and that lower cost gets passed on to the consumer.

Great, then I guess that means the cost of college is at its lowest point in history since more people are going to college now than ever have before, right? There's very little pressure for universities to lower "production costs" because the government just keeps being willing to funnel more and more money towards them.

>Do you believe private schools are better because they provide superior education or because private schools do not have to admit historically disadvantaged populations like the financially poor, those with special needs, and those with behavior problems?

I believe private schools are better because they are unburdened by excessive bureaucracy and may more efficiently respond to the needs of their students. I believe private schools are better because if they don't provide the product that parents want, they will quickly cease to exist. If the public school doesn't provide the product the parents want, then what? Nothing, too bad.

>Are you active in the PTA or the school board? Rather than supporting religious institutions with public funds, wouldn't it make more sense to improve the public school?

I believe the BEST way to improve public schools is to put their funding at risk by giving parents the power to choose to take their money elsewhere. It's not that I'm opposed to public schools, it's that it seems nonsensical to me to give them special treatment. Is there any other product or service that you would recommend that kind of direct activism? Trump University made some big headlines for being incredibly shitty. Do you believe the best way to improve Trump University is to put all of your personal education dollars into the school and from within the school advocate for reforms, all the while wasting your money on a shitty non-education? If Pepsi starts providing you with an inferior product, do you buy as much Pepsi stock as you can? Or do you just start buying Coke?

>Are you conflating "health care system" with "health care providers?" My gastroenterologist is pretty good, but you could install a kitchen for what he charges. Do you think that people who cannot afford that should be allowed to fall through the butt-cracks of our health care system?

If you took away the AMA's government granted monopoly power or at the very least stopped them from putting a strangle hold on the number of gastroenterologists out there, your doctor would have to lower his prices to compete with all the new doctors that would enter the market.

>Are you using this to help support your claim that our healthcare [providers] are great but American culture is stupid? I'd buy that, although I don't think it digresses from our talk about the health care system.

Our amazing providers are the direct result of our system. The reason the best providers in the world are here is because our system attracts them with the highest salaries.

>Some states do allow vouchers, but they do not require these private/religious schools to accept ALL students and meet universal educational standards. This is (note present-tense) an existing problem until your proposed accountability piece is enacted.

I don't believe this is as big of a problem as you do. If a particular school fails to teach its students valid science, then that schools' students will suffer economically and that problem will sort itself out. Your argument here seems to be that you want to take away someone's money and then refuse to give it back to them until they learn precisely what you want them to learn in the way you want them to learn it. I think that's immoral. For all I know religious schools with shitty science will churn out happier people who are better stewards for positive social change in their communities. I don't know that to be true, and I don't really care. I'm willing to let each person decide what they'd like to optimize for themselves.

>I also like that Henry Ford had the philosophy that his own workers should be able to afford his cars.

Ford's company reached record profits during that time because he scooped up all the best talent off the market. This is a regular occurrence in today's market. Some companies pay higher wages to attract the best talent, while other companies pay lower wages to try to out-compete on price (rather than quality). And there are successes in the market on both ends of that spectrum and everywhere in between.

>so I can be reasonably sure that my beef isn't made from assort cat parts (FDA labeling)

This would be solved with about a paragraph's worth of regulation and no enforcement bodies. All food products must contain a complete list of ingredients. Failure to accurately disclose ingredients constitutes fraud, meaning you can sue them, which itself should be deregulated to have no civil liability limits.

> drinking water and electricity

Natural monopolies need more oversight. I am still a firm believer in keeping that as local as possible.

>How would you propose protecting people from the unscrupulous?

Deregulation also means removing the civil penalty limits if corporations do something shitty. I won't pretend to have the answer to every scenario here, but I'm open to more frequently piercing the corporate veil in the event of fraud or wreckless endangerment. Meaning start taking the personal assets of the people responsible for things like lead in Detroit's water. And I'm not completely opposed to regulations. I just think it's important to recognize that government is just as likely, if not more-so, to be unscrupulous compared to a private corporation. A private corporation at least faces the threat of you no longer buying their product. Meanwhile, virtually every government official gets re-elected no matter what they do while in office.