You are a slave

By Ransom Stephens (www.ransomstephens.com)

Arbitrary conditions are the classic tools of the oppressor. To flog a beaten fascist, the birth of National Socialism, along with every other deeply oppressive governing system, is earmarked with arbitrary conditions. If the rules are arbitrary, then the enforcer can enforce on a whim.

Consider the system of credit:

1. Three privately held corporations own the rights to determine your credit rating. You are bound to their formula. Their formula is not based wholly on whether or not you pay your bills on time. In fact, your score goes down if you don’t carry some debt. Your credit score decreases if you don’t put yourself in a profitable position for financiers.
2. The method for determining your credit score, however arcane, is a proprietary formula that you cannot reformulate or even obtain.
3. You do not have the right to opt-out of the credit scoring system.
4. The three score keepers do most of their bookkeeping in foreign countries. There are legal requirements for controlling your privacy, but no defined punishment if these companies fail to do so.
5. Credit cards bump to 34% interest if you miss a payment – any payment on any card.
6. The “terms and conditions” of credit cards can be changed without notice.
7. Professors of economics can’t decipher the meaning of those Ts and Cs anyway.
8. Can you lead a reasonable existence without credit?

• You are a slave to the credit industry

Consider air travel in the 21st century:

1. If your fluids are not in a one quart transparent zip-lock bag, you can be denied travel. We suspect that the reason for this does not have to do with the adamantine qualities of polyethylene.
2. Take off your shoes and walk sock-footed through the fungus freeway. It’s fun, really. If you question it, if you wish to, say, spray your path with a disinfectant – no flying for you!
3. The “No-fly” list. The government is not obligated to inform members of the exclusive “no-fly” club how, when, or why they were forced to join.
4. No bomb has ever been detected at the security gate.

• You are a slave to the travel industry

Consider Healthcare, at least in these United States:

1. Pre-existing conditions are not covered. That means that you can’t leave your employer unless you’re willing to pay artificially high prices for COBRA benefits for up to three years. After that, well, you should be better by then.
2. If you get sick, you can’t quit your job. Obviously, if you’re sick you need those benefits. If you’re sick, maybe you can’t work. Bummer dude, you’re fired. But you can pay for your health benefits with COBRA, right? except that you don’t have a job anymore.
3. What if you want to start a business, expand the economy, compete with a corporation – do everything that’s good and decent in a market based economy. If you’re healthy, you’re in. If you’re not, you need to keep working for The Man.

• You are enslaved to your employer

The solutions:

Credit: The only legitimate guardian of credit ratings is an organization that can be questioned, probed, denied, and examined.

(For the left:) It would be a publicly identifiable, transparent bureaucracy. The credit scoring algorithm must be openly debated and regulated by the people it governs.

(For the right:) If the argument “no one is forcing you to have a credit card” is deemed valid, then no one should force me to have a credit rating either. Individuals should have the choice to “opt in” if they want a credit rating, to one or more companies who issue such ratings. The consumer can then choose that system that s/he believes to be the most legitimate. In other words, market-based credit reporting.

Air Travel: I’m tempted to say something smug like, “everyone should have a year of probability and statistics so that we can dispense with the BS. If you’re willing to risk your life in a car, then risking your life to terrorists is nothing. In one year, ten times as many people die and ten times as much damage is inflicted by car accidents than happened in the attacks of 11-Sept-2001. (and people who play the lottery should be put on the no-fly list for their own illusion of safety)” But I won’t. Instead: no arbitrariness. State the conditions that qualify individuals for the no-fly list, search everyone or search no one.

Healthcare: (For the left:) come on, this problem has been solved in every other industrialized nation. What’s our problem? We pay twice as much for half as much – not very thrifty.

(For the right:) The end of employer-sponsored healthcare benefits. No more slavery. Since healthcare cannot pragmatically be denied to those without health insurance, then, like car insurance, everyone has to buy it themselves in a market system. If Adam Smith had his head in the air, then this market should bring efficiency. There are a lot of annoying details here, Mr. McCain: pre-existing conditions – do you penalize people for things they have no choice about (e.g., type 1 diabetes) or for things they did have a choice about (e.g., type 2 diabetes)? Or both? How can you rationalize a system where the insurance company never has to commit itself? Every insurance company qualifies their preferred provider lists with a statement that it is subject to change without notice. Even when a procedure has been approved, the fine print lists qualifiers that allow them to opt out after the fact. If you apply for health insurance, it can take months to be approved and get an accurate rate quote. Why do health insurers have a right to see my medical history anyway? What happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?

Are health insurers “providers” or “deniers” of health care?