Tom Woods

Question 1

What must we ask whenever someone points to a bill and says look, this act is falling/rising since its passage?

Answer 1

We must act what the trend was before the bill was passed.

Question 2

What was the economy like in Sweden in the 1950s?

Answer 2

In the 1950s, Sweden had lower taxes and less public spending than in the US and the rest of Europe. That is one of the reasons they became so wealthy.

Question 3

What happened in the early 1970s in Sweden?

Answer 3

In Sweden, at the time one of the wealthiest countries in the world, Democrats began to hike public spending and increase taxes, and they could do so because of Sweden’s wealth, first created because of its free-market and the fact that it had stayed out of two World Wars.

Question 4

What had happened to Sweden by 2000?

Answer 4

It had fallen from being the 4th richest country on the planet (70s) to being the 14th richest country on the planet.

Question 5

How many jobs, on net, were created in Sweden between 1950 and the mid-1990s?

Answer 5

zero.

Question 6

What has been beginning to happen in Sweden over the past 20 years?

Answer 6

They have begun to scale back their welfare system and high tax rates.

Question 7

Who, overall, is more economically free right now, Sweden or the US?

Answer 7

Sweden

Question 8

What has caused unequal growth around the world?

Answer 8

The unequal distribution of capitalism. Where you have capitalism, you see this progress, where you don’t you see stagnation, poverty, and misery.

Question 9

What does a legally required 52-week maternity leave do?

Answer 9

It makes hiring mothers and potential mothers less attractive.

Question 10

Despite having a larger public sector, why does Denmark have nearly the exact same economic freedom score as the US?

Answer 10

Because parts of Danish society are far more capitalist than the U.S. Property rights protection is among the finest in the world, and the labor markets are more or less deregulated. This creates the wealth that supports their larger welfare state.

Question 11

How has the larger public sector impacted Denmark?

Answer 11

They have fallen from being the 4th richest country (30s) to being the 15th wealthiest country.

Question 12

How does the number of global climate-related deaths today compare to global climate-related deaths in the 30s? How has the climate changed? What does this show?

Answer 12

They are down 98% since the 30s (note this is not per capita so it’s even more incredible when you talk about the decrease from millions of people annually to less than 30,000 annually). It is also despite the fact that the climate is supposedly far worse today than it was back then. This shows that we need to focus not on climate change per se, but rather on climate livability.

Question 13

Is climate danger just what nature does? What is the natural climate inherently? What does this mean? What does energy allow us to do? What does this mean for say, drought?

Answer 13

No, climate danger is a function of interaction between what nature does and what human beings can do. And it turns out that the natural climate is inherently variable, it’s inherently volatile, and it’s inherently vicious. So that’s a constant. So climate is a huge problem that we have to deal with as human beings in any era, whether we have fossil fuels or not. And what energy allows us to do is to master that. In the case of drought, through technolody, we’re progressively really redefining drought or almost making it nonexistent in many ways. Because once you can purify water, and transport it long distances, the impact of a drought begins to go from meaning I die to meaning by the price of fruit goes up a dollar.

Question 14

What have fossil fuels and other technological advances that release CO2 allowed us to do?

Answer 14

They have allowed us to begin to master the climate.

Question 15

How has getting water changed over the past 300 years? How has heating impacted clean air over the past 300 years?

Answer 15

We’ve gone from needing to walk long distances to collect bacteria-filled water to being able to turn on the faucet and have essentially as much clean water as we want. We’ve gone from massive indoor air pollution caused by fires to keep us warm, to being able to breath clean air at home even if we live next to a coal plant.

Question 16

What is always left out in the debate between $7.25 and $15.00?

Answer 16

The fact that they might be making $0 because they won’t be hired in the first place.

Question 17

What is the Democrat mentality surrounding improving living conditions?

Answer 17

That instead of trying to increase productivity and capital accumulation in order to increase prosperity for everyone, we just wish, we just write words on a piece of paper and sign it.

Question 18

What is more important, decreasing income inequality or increasing income mobility?

Answer 18

Increasing income mobility, the ability to rise from the bottom quintile to a higher one, and then a higher one further and further.

Question 19

What question shows a moral paradox regarding the minimum wage?

Answer 19

Why is it ok to fire an employee that does nothing and pay him $0, but not okay to pay a worker $14? Why is it immoral for an employer to pay such a worker only $14 per hour in wages if that’s what the person produces?

Question 20

What happens to higher-skilled workers when minimum wage laws are raised? How does the impact low-skilled workers?

Answer 20

They become more willing to take low-skilled jobs because the pay gap between lower-skilled jobs and higher-skilled jobs has shrunk. This means that lower-skilled workers are now in direct competition with higher-skilled workers.

Question 21

Why are insurance companies able to offer lower rates to people who use direct primary care?

Answer 21

Because in those cases they are only in the business of insuring rare, catastrophic events, not the daily things.

Question 22

Why is health insurance so expensive?

Answer 22

Because its insuring common things that we know are going to happen. It’s like the equivalent of having car insurance for gasoline, oil changes, new tires, windshield wiper fluid, etc.

Question 23

Medicaid

Answer 23

Medicaid is a health care program that assists low-income families or individuals in paying for doctor visits, hospital stays, long-term medical, custodial care costs and more. Medicaid is a joint program, funded primarily by the federal government and run at the state level, where coverage may vary

Question 24

Medicare

Answer 24

Medicare is the United States federal government health insurance program for Americans who are 65 years of age and older. … These benefits are intended to cover the costs of healthcare associated with advanced age.

Question 25

Why do some physicians deny Medicare recipients? What will happen if Medicare for all is enacted?

Answer 25

Many physicians talk about unacceptable waiting times to receive reimbursement from their state Medicaid programs. To make matters worse, these low reimbursements came on top of increasingly complex paperwork that their office staff are forced to fill out. Less money and a month late too. Not a recipe for happiness.

Pays about 80% of what a non-Medicare patient pays.

If Medicare for all is mandated it will cause the same problems as rent control, longer lines and shortages, deteriorating quality, less people wanting to become doctors in the long term exacerbating the problem.

Question 26

What would a Medicare for all plan look like?

Answer 26

virtually all private health insurance would be eliminated, and in its place, Americans of every age would enroll in Medicare. Copays and premiums would be banned, and dental care, substance abuse services, vision and pharmaceuticals would be covered, all at taxpayers’ expense.

Question 27

How much would Medicare for all cost over the first 10 years?

Answer 27

That study presented a lower-bound estimate of $32.6 trillion in added federal costs over the first 10 years of full implementation, with the caveats that this estimate reflected several extremely favorable assumptions, and that actual costs were likely to be substantially higher.

Question 28

How much did the US government spend in 2018?

Answer 28

4.11 trillion dollars.

Question 29

How much less money would doctors make under Medicare for all?

Answer 29

the rate paid to hospitals for Medicare patients in 2022 will be about 40 percent lower than what hospitals will receive from a private health insurance provider. Payments to physicians will be about 30 percent lower. Over time, the gap is expected to grow.

Question 30

Because of the lower pay for doctors, what will happen under a Medicare-for-all bill?

Answer 30

This doesn’t simply mean that health care providers would have to accept less money for their services; it would likely drive thousands of doctors and hospitals out of business.

Question 31

How will Medicare-for-all impact doctor burnouts?

Answer 31

By requiring doctors to see more patients that now on a daily basis in order to make ends meet, it is more and more likely that doctors, who already have a burnout rate of 44%, will become even more disenchanted with the practicing medicine.

Question 32

By 2030, even without Medicare for all, what kind of doctor shortage are Americans looking at?

Answer 32

About 120,00 short by 2030, without adding in the potential detrimental effects of Medicare for all shall it become law.

Question 33

What is the carbon emission tax argument against unemployment?

Answer 33

That liberals support a carbon emission tax on the grounds that it will cause less co2 to be released by businesses. Well, for the same exact reason, making employing people more expensive (minimum wage, forced benefits like paid leave, etc) will lead to less people hiring workers.

Question 34

How is it that over the past century and a half or so, we’ve seen people working fewer hours but making more money?

Answer 34

Because of an increase in productivity. People produce more per hour. And the main ingredient in that is capital investment by entrepreneurs. When the employer buys a new software system, a new computer system, or, in agriculture, the latest agricultural technology or something like that, then the people who work with that technology become more productive. They can produce more output per hour. And employers have to compete for these people to run their machines to operate their computers and so forth. And how do you compete for employeees? You have to offer them a little more money. So when productivity goes up, wages go up.

Question 35

Why is it clear that their is no pay gap between men and women for equal work?

Answer 35

Because if a greedy business man could hire a woman less than a man of equal skill, then they would only hire women because that would maximize profits.

Question 36

What did the Equal Pay Act of 1063 do?

Answer 36

It made it illegal to pay employees different wages based on gender.

Question 37

What percentage of full-time male workers work over 41 hours per week? What percentage of female workers work over 41 hours per week?

Answer 37

26 percent of men, 14 percent of women.

Question 38

How is the “wage gap” calculated?

Answer 38

By taking the average salary of full time (35+ hours) men and comparing it to the average salary of full time (35+ hours) women.

Question 39

Is the wage gap between single men and women before they have kids larger or smaller than the “wage gap.”

Answer 39

It is essentially nonexistent.

Question 40

What is the pay gap for couples with children under 6 years old?

Answer 40

Women make 82% of what men make (averaging salaries of full time workers).

Question 41

What is the current gender pay gap?

Answer 41

85%