Comment by DominikR | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DominikR | Hacker News Reader

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> "good for business", which translates to "bad for consumers"

I know it's trendy to be left leaning so you easily get away with such generalising statements but ask yourself these questions before hating on all businesses:

Would you buy an iPhone or a laptop designed and built by a government agency? A car? How about a pair of shoes or pants. Would you prefer sending your children to private or public schools. Same goes for universities. Would you rather participate in evil Capitalism to earn a living or live under government social security regimentation, possibly even with a job provided or forced on you by government.

Is there even anything where you would prefer the government option over something offered by private businesses?

If you don't want private businesses to offer products and services, and government products and services suck, then who is going to provide this?

You missed the point, and I'm not sure you understand what "good for business", as practiced by Republican administrations in the US, means.

It simply means no regulations. So businesses are free to do anything they want, with consumers at the receiving end of the negative consequences of such practices.

Most recently, we saw how that played out under the last Republican (Bush) administration. In an environment in which corporations were going gang-busters, I don't recall that administration ever bringing a single anti-trust case.

That "good for business" environment eventually led to the 2008 financial crises. And the single most important curb that was put in place to prevent such a crisis from happening again is under threat, because the guys set to take office in January (2017) have already said they'll undo the Dodd-Frank Act.

I would prefer to send my kids to public schools and universities.

I would far prefer single-payer health care or state-run health care to the current American system.

Mind you, I don't want to shut down private universities or health care providers for anyone who wants to pay for them.

I do want education and access to medical care to be universally available to all people (not just citizens, but people) in this country, and having a state-run system for those makes sense.

Consumer goods, I don't think there needs to be a government producer of those in general, unless the markets have somehow failed to make some necessities of life available to people.

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