🚀 go-pugleaf

Michael Ballard writes:

>Rudeboy <ez018982@chip.ucdavis.edu> wrote:
>>Michael Ballard <miballar@leland.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>>
>>>Rudeboy <ez018982@dale.ucdavis.edu> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>If the State of California gets the money, it will supposedly be used
>>>>to provide public goods.  If the insurance companies get the profits,
>>>>then the owners of the firms (i.e., ordinary people) can use the income
>>>>to buy whatever they like.
>>
>>>Ordinary people own the insurance companies!
>>>Oh right, you mean the movie--Ordinary People.
>>
>>No.  I mean ordinary people like stockholders.
>
>Let's say that ordinary people means the average or most of the people.

No, let's not, Michael.  Let's say that ordinary people are the kind of
people you see every day, while living your every-day, ordinary life.  I,
for one, do *not* want to live in a society where all lives will be made
"average" by law.  As a Stanford student, I can't believe you would,
either.

>Most of the people do not own stock [...]

Irrelevant.  *Most* people don't own two television sets.  So what?
Should we make a law that says you can *only* own one?  Or maybe we
should *require* taxpayers to buy two TVs for everybody?

> [....] and of those who do own stock, most
>of them don't own enough to make a smidgen of an impact
>on the policies of insurance company executives.  

Ridiculous.  If enough shareholders felt that they should get together
and force a change on the way *their* firm is run, they can certainly
do so, whether each of these people owns 20% of the firm or only 1%.

>On the other hand, an elected person, in this case the health insurance
>commissioner, can be voted in or out of office by all the ordinary people,
>as each has one vote, no matter how much money s/he has.  Granted the 
>rich do try to buy elections--Huffington, the millionaire vs. Feinstein
>the millionaire--but I think ordinary people have a whole lot more to 
>say about the this sort of outcome than they do at the shareholders' 
>meetings of the various and sundry corporations of the world.

Bull.  How much impact does your vote have on the outcome of an
election?  If yu don't like a presidential candidate, your vote counts
for nothing.  If you own $1,000 worth of a $10 million dollar firm, you
have more impact on the leadership of that firm than you do on the
leadership of the state of California.

Humbly yours,
Rudeboy

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    Rudeboy, the Voice of a Generation -- ez018982@chip.ucdavis.edu

Disclaimer:   My opinions are the opinions of my employer, my employer's 
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