Martin:
> Does it occur to anyone that the poor designs, high pension
> costs and increased foreign competition may be part of a long
> term plan to shut US labor out of the automobile business by
> shutting US plants and importing auto products via FDI - or
> was this part of the 'dark matter' that was discussed
> recently? The contest between big auto and labor has been
> such a major cultural focal point for my life span that I
> find it difficult to conceive of any other explanation for
> the 'failure' of big auto in the US.
Conspiracy, huh? Why would "they" want to do that, when labor is already on its knees? And who is "they" - is there a united capitalist cabal that dictates long term policy and everyone just shuts up an listens?
Methinks that everything else in the United States, the design or perhaps lack of it is an outcome of business opportunism, muddling through, and lack of opposition. There is a lot of organized special interest that benefit from the current system, from insurance companies to unions, the AMA and corporation who can use it as a bargaining chip with labor, while there is no organized opposition to it or organized interests for a single payer option. The general public shelled $1,401bn for medical services and $253.3 bn on drugs in 2004 - more than on any other item (cf. food $1,134.7 bn, household operations $446.2bn, and clothes & shoes $329bn) - so it may benefit from the latter, but the general public does not grease politicians, special interests do. That is why we have a hodge podge serving special interests and inefficient system that is driving the cost through the roof.
The same principle applies in transportation - efficient public transit would save the general public a lot of money: total car cost in 2004 was $912.4bn including purchase of vehicles, gasoline and maintenance vs. total local transit cost $14.1 bn and intercity transit - $44.6 bn. It is clear that efficient public transit that would cut the car usage in half would save people about $300bn (assuming that it would increase the use of local transit tenfold). However, there are powerful organized lobbies pushing for car-based transportation (again the unholy alliance includes the unions) with vast capacity to grease the politicians, and little organized interest lobbying fro public transit that have almost no capacity to grease the political machine. Therefore, we have an expensive an inefficient transportation system that benefits special interest that pay off politicos and screws up the general public whose only contribution to the process is their votes (which come cheaply).
So you do not need a capitalist conspiracy to explain the screwed-up status of the health care system (and most other services) in this country, the general venality of the US political system does a satisfactory job.
Wojtek