"Scrapping" the NHS & the Gender Pay Gap Myth | IEA Podcast

[@chiefsittingstill6061]

The gender pay gap is one of those myths that just won't die. I remember several years ago finding videos of discussions about it featuring Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell, in which they comprehensively rebutted the claims on logical and evidential grounds. This would've been back in the late 70s/early 80s, yet here we are 40+ years later having to go over and over the same ground yet again.

[@NoToobForYou]

Same dynamic exists wrt race. It keeps working because too many bystanders make the category error that the social justice warriors of today have anything to do with the civil rights leaders of yesterday. They just want to keep the trough full.

[@jackdeniston6150]

Not myths, lies. Deliberate grifting lies.

[@Locke350]

@@jackdeniston6150The gender grifters are basically saying reality is a bigot because the earnings gap is based on the choices that men and women make.

[@theguy9067]

​@@jackdeniston6150I really don't think it's lies. I believe people just don't understand the concepts used to explain the gap. So they walk away thinking that they simply disagree. And they don't understand that "just because you don't understand doesn't mean that you can say 'I wasn't convinced'". At a cultural level it's also much easier to understand "there is a x percentage gap, doesn't matter the reason why" it's a much simpler idea for most people and it feels better to believe

[@NoToobForYou]

A rational individual should need no more evidence that a sex-based gap of any significant magnitude does not exist, than the fact men remain employed. If employers operating in a competitive marketplace could get away with hiring women for "the same work" at a lower rate and they maintained more than a few token men on staff, that business would not exist for much longer. And lest the counter claim is levied that hiring all women would not be allow because such would constitute sex discrimination, all I have to say is bless your heart. If you imagine that such protections are applied to the benefit of men, or whites, or any other group not prioritized by identitarians, I have a bridge to sell you.

[@GUIGuyify]

A problem with such insurance based health systems is how you transition. If funding is to be transitioned to an insurance based model Governments won’t forgoe the tax revenue they used to spend on healthcare. So some people end up paying twice, once via tax and then again via insurance. In Ireland we wanted to transition to a Dutch model. In certain respects we have… the insurance pricing is universal. However we already pay 52% marginal tax on anything just below the median income… yet 47% of people have private insurance. It’s just another stealth tax because governments don’t want to spend tax money into a bottomless pit. Those who rely on the ‘free’ public system perceive that people on the private system can jump the queue by going private… yet the public system is subsidized by the private.

[@jonahtwhale1779]

Spending gap is what matters, not wage gap! Why do we go to work? To earn money or to have money to spend? None of us has piles of cash, we spend most of what we earn. So spending is the real aim of working. Who spends more? Men or women? Go to your local mall. There are many more stores and the majority of floor space dedicated to women's purchases, and much less for men's. Why do the store owners do this? How is this economic miracle achieved? Earn less spend more! Women are spending some of the money men earn as well as their own earnings. Who is more oppressed? The man working to earn money he will never spend or the woman spending money she did not earn?

[@damianpudner9931]

Inflation and its causes are greatly misunderstood and even hotly debated among differing economic schools of thought. The IEA could help greatly to bring these debates to a broader and more diverse audience. Especially the young or those interested in economics.

[@advocate1563]

Yes, if course EXCESSIVE liquidity creates inflation. The same amount of stuff and more money = asset inflation. QE case in point.

[@JosephMcCaffrey-m2k]

There's no inconsistency between correctly viewing monetary policy, central banking, and state control of money markets as an abberation that should be abolished, while also having a view on what monetary policy should be in the meantime. No different to thinking minimum wage should be abolished but preferring a £10 minimum wage to a £100 one. The chicago school view that recessions are shallower with state control of money and hence it is desirable is a shortsighted view that doesn't consider the overall impact. Some 'smoothing' effect may apply, but it's not a free lunch, the harm caused in other ways, including higher inflation and weaker growth in non recession times outweighs any benefits in shorter recessions. Even were that not the case, the vast harm caused by allowing state spending to be far higher than possible under a free market in credit where the state could only fund spending by tax or 'normal' borrowing is dramatically worse than the occassional recession being possibly slightly longer lasting.

[@johnstanton8499]

Regarding Medicare for Britons would they have to sell their home before qualifying as in America. Most pensioners ,ordinary working people dont have any spare cash for health insurance, they are just about keeping the wolf from the door as it is without adding another pack of wolves?

[@Locke350]

Medicare in the States is for people age 65 or older and younger people with disabilities, including those with ALS and Lou Gehrig's disease. While Medicaid is for adults and children with limited income and resources. The latter provided free health insurance to 85 million low-income and disabled people as of 2022. Get your facts right before you pull stuff out of your backside.

[@torquemaddertorquemadder2080]

IS that thing on top of Raechel Reeves' head a wig?

[@thrutholthrolth]

That 14.8% figure seems to be flat-out wrong. According to the ONS, the full time gender pay gap in 2023 was 7.7% in men’s favour and the part time pay gap was 3.3% in women’s favour. The ONS figure is 14.3% only when you lump everyone together, which seems nonsensical. That figure must simply be a factor of women’ greater tendency to work part-time. You only fix that by making women work full time. But who says that’s automatically desirable? Do women all want to work full time? For that matter do men?! I suspect the answer is no, which means men do actually deserve to be compensated for sacrificing other better things in life in order to maximise the income they generate for their families.

[@3d1e00]

What would you guys accept as definitive proof that free market capitalism wont work? This is a serious question, I care from a modelling perspective. I really am just not bothered by all this political crap anymore though, so can any reply please be to the point.

[@youtubeyoutube936]

What would convince you that an alternative system with nt?

[@ePeterRobinson]

What is the evidence that's convinced you that it won't work?

[@3d1e00]

@@ePeterRobinson so a hypothesis which may be testable. I guess a first question is would it be acceptable to simplify a capitalist system down to a simple coin flip between agents? This would be the transaction model and rules are debatable on how the outcome is interpreted.

[@jackdeniston6150]

The challenge with ´health´ is essentially you have a monopoly situation when healthcare is needed. No real negotiation when your arm is falling off. However, chronic or non emergency can be market driven. The political crap would come deciding what fits where. eg good luck getting ivf paid for privately. Or anything woman related.

[@Locke350]

@@3d1e00You can ask Singapore about their health system. They were able to figure it out.