Make it like the cable bill. If government required all cable companies operating in a state to include all the premium channels then the cost of cable would be a lot higher than it already is. They offer a basic package and people can add on what they want and pay the increase. The people who do not watch NFL network or HBO are not paying for it because it has to be included. Same with health insurance. Single males do not need OB/GYN coverage or abortion services.

DAR
Many states have very little competition. Some states have companies with 70% of the market locked up. And they are for profit and make a killing.

We also, and perhaps more importantly, don’t have much competition in health care delivery. When I had surgery on my neck (2 inch by 1 inch section around melanoma mole) they wouldn’t even tell me the price before surgery. When you can’t get a quote, there is no “shopping around.”

Plus, we have perverse incentives to waste and drive up costs. Note:

“…high-quality, low-cost care is not financially rewarding. Indeed, the opposite is true. Hospitals and doctors can make more money providing inefficient, mediocre care, explains Goodman.

In a normal market, entrepreneurs in search of profit would solve this problem by repackaging and repricing their services in order to make customer-pleasing adjustments. Yet in health care, contracts and prices are imposed by large impersonal bureaucracies. The individual physician has virtually no opportunity to offer a different bundle of services for a different price. As a result, very little entrepreneurship is possible, says Goodman.

Source: John C. Goodman, “Perverse Incentives in Health Care,” Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2007.
***

With health care in the US, the incentive is largely profit and greed. Perhaps the most perverse incentive of all.

D.

In fact, the numbers show the impact of the CRA loans was less than that of “the others.”

SAV
Yes. You didn’t read, did you?

DOG
The Democrats wanted the CRA to give these loans to people who could not afford them:

SAV
I disagree with your characterization of the CRA, but it’s actually beside the point. If the purpose of the CRA was to turn rivers green, that doesn’t change what did or didn’t happen.

DOG
However, given the harassment and intimidating climate that many banks were under it is understandable why they would say screw it and just give the loans.

SAV
Still not buying it. They weren’t forced to give the loans. The argument here is that the banks were threatened with the possibility of requirement, so instead of not doing what they weren’t required to do and lobbying against bills that would enact those requirements (because the banks have no lobbying power, right?), they just caved and made the loans they didn’t want to make? Not even you believe this: you continue by saying that banks were voluntarily making bad loans.

Let’s look at a few things together:

DOG
[Investor Business Daily link],

I have no doubt that many banks were making loans they should not regardless of the pressure exerted on them by the race baiting groups.

Banks make risky loans. Fannie or Freddie buy up the loans. Loans now the responsibility of a government sponsored entity.

SAV
You’ve blamed the CRA for creating risky loans. CRA loans suffered no worse fate than others. What others? The others — bad loans — that you “have no doubt” banks were making independently of “pressure” and the CRA. In fact, the numbers show the impact of these non-CRA loans was less than the others.
Now that we’ve established that the CRA really hasn’t the responsibility the righties want it to have, you’re making HUD the scapegoat.

Now let’s sum this up:

DOG
Here is how it worked. Banks make risky loans.

SAV
And regardless of the dominoes you try to place after this one, the bottom line is that this is to blame.

The Democrats wanted the CRA to give these loans to people who could not afford them:

June 1995

Republicans had won control of Congress and planned CRA reforms. The Clinton administration, however, allied with Rep. Frank, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., did an end-around by directing HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo to inject GSEs into the subprime mortgage market. Investor Business Daily

I have no doubt that many banks were making loans they should not regardless of the pressure exerted on them by the race baiting groups. However, given the harassment and intimidating climate that many banks were under it is understandable why they would say screw it and just give the loans.

Here is how it worked. Banks make risky loans. Fannie or Freddie buy up the loans. Loans now the responsibility of a government sponsored entity.

The blame for our current financial mess rests with government, with the major player being the Federal Reserve Board keeping interest rates artificially low

He is well schooled in economics.

This guy tries to explain that the CRA was the first domino, and even goes to great lengths to say that the CRA was not the sole factor. Despite this fact, he continues to try to tie nearly every factor back to the CRA, whether that’s reasonable or not, and pooh-pooh away the rest of the dominoes.

When responding to claims that the CRA didn’t cause this or that, his argument often amounts to, “well, no, but yes,” followed by a train of tortured logic. Even his commenters rip him a new one, and his rebuttals are feeble to say the least.

“Sure, the banks made stupid loans that weren’t mandated by the CRA, but they had to do it because everyone was doing it.” No they didn’t. They lowered their own lending standards because they wanted to suck in more money in the form of risky loans. That’s the bottom line.

This author also has a page on how the CRA made these other banks make stupid loans. He gives three reasons, each of which is farcical. Here he repeats the “The banks didn’t have to make stupid loans, but they had to. You know. C’mon. C’mon.”

The report from the Fed rebuts the entire line of argumentation, complete with demographic loan performance analysis and timeline scrutiny.

SAV
You said that the government victimized the car companies. Then you explained that the unions killed the car companies. We’ve established that the unions are not the government, and vice versa, yet you’re still blaming the government.

DOG
The Fed? They are part of the problem.

SAV
Let’s presume, for the sake of argument, that this claim is true. Does that mean that we can’t trust those data? How does this refute the conclusions?
But this is even better. You point me to a page saying that the argument that the CRA is to blame isn’t really bought by people who understand the argument. The article essentially points out that banks voluntarily made stupid loans. Which was, uncoincidentally, the point of the data I posted earlier.

The Fed? They are part of the problem. Here is something to help you.