Bryan wrote:
> On Sep 15, 8:54 am, John Galt > wrote:
>> Bryan wrote:
>>> On Sep 15, 7:04 am, John Galt > wrote:
>>> A bunch of crap about greed being virtuous.
>> Never said that. Who are you responding to?
>
> Quote: "Profit in America is good..."

Exactly. Never said a word about greed.
>
> The idea that profit, in itself, is a moral good is a twisted
> ideology.

Profit is the motivation by which people engage in commerce. Without
such motivation, commerce ceases, and we'll be a third world country in
a generation.

Profit is simply that -- making a buck on a transaction for goods and
services. It is a necessary component of business activity. Greed, OTOH,
is a corrupted motivation. Greed is not the attainment of excess profit,
but the DESIRE for excess profit well beyond what is needed by the
greedy person.

The two are only tangentially related. You can't say because a person
believes profit is good, they believe greed is good. Doesn't work like
that.
>
> I'm not a socialist. I recognize that self interest works to motivate
> and spurs innovation, but the health insurance companies are
> parasites. Even so, I'd like to see them slowly made irrelevant,
> rather than done away with in short order as they so richly deserve,
> because a sudden move to single payer would be too disruptive even in
> more prosperous times.

So what you actually have is not a problem with profit, OR greed, but a
problem with the business model of the insurer.

I suggest you focus in on fixing the business model so it delivers more
value to society, rather than killing what you admit is a necessary
business function (if you support single payer, you're supporting the
business function of the insurers -- you just want somebody else to run
it, and it's somebody that not many americans trust very much to do a
good job of it. )
>
> Ownership (ownability) is a social construct, not a sacred property
> inherent in anything possessible, and many things just shouldn't be in
> private, for-profit hands. Health insurance has proven to be one of
> them.

That's your opinion. I disagree. Most nations that have universal
coverage would also disagree, because most nations do not have single
payer systems. They deliver universal coverage through regulated private
insurers. The "world" is not the UK and Canada. There are many models,
and most include private insurance (even the UK does, for that matter --
anybody with a buck in their pocket buys a private insurance policy as
backup for when the NHS fails to deliver.)
>
> Profit is neither morally good nor bad, but wise or unwise, depending
> on the circumstances. Ayn Rand was morally bankrupt.

Rand took many positions. Only a priest or a philosopher has any
business passing judgement on morals, by my way of thinking.

However, what she warned about primarly was a creeping movement of
so-called morality into government, which then pontificating nonsense
about how the "society" is more important than your family and your
direct dependents.

Sorry, but if you tell me is more important to insure some bum on the
street than it is to insure my own family, you've the problem, not me
(I'd also like to be a fly on the wall when you tell that to your wife.)

JG


>> JG
>
>>> Anyone who'd choose that moniker (John Galt) is trying to tell the
>>> world just that.
>>> Selfishness is not something to be proud of. You need to repeat
>>> kindergarten.
>>> --Bryan
>
> --Bryan