August 5, 2011 at 10:41 am
You're also generalizing beyond the scope of my statements on this subject. I don't "blanket no" the subject. There are places that I believe "common good" is best served by government, mainly in terms of mutual defense.
If you have a preset opinion on the things government should or should not do, then this is exactly what I meant.
You have your bucket of "best served" options, and you assume anything outside of it can't work. This is dangerous logical territory, because when someone suggests something new outside those options you have already decided it can't work and are only looking for support as to why, as opposed to examining the particulars of that issue.
I never said I'd never consider a new government program. You put those words in my mouth, not me.
There is a huge difference between having serious skepticism about government, and refusing to believe something good can come of it despite evidence to the contrary. I have biases, not prejudices, on the subject, and my biases are very, very subject to change upon presentation of adequate evidence. (There are big differences between bias and prejudgement. I'm assuming you either already know them or can familiarize yourself with them adequately.)
What I have not seen is anything to make me trust the US government with nationalized health insurance. On the contrary, I see a ton of evidence that it will, given the opportunity, turn it into a disaster of tremendous magnitude. Their track record on this is overwhelming.
Can I do something about that, as a voting citizen? Yep. And I work on that more than you might think, from the basics of trying to create an educated citizenry on up to national affairs like tax reform.
I didn't just wake up one morning and decide, "government sucks and politicians are evil". I spend a lot of time educating myself on the matter, and working with organizations and groups that are doing things I think are critical towards revitalizing our civilization and eliminating many of the forms of avoidable human suffering on this planet. A lot of my money, time/effort, and attention goes on those things.
There's very little worse than someone with strong negative opinions, who refuses to do something about the situations he dislikes so vigorously. That's not me. I work on this every day.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
August 5, 2011 at 11:06 am
GSquared (8/5/2011)
For example, both will lead to limited choice and limited innovation. But a private monopoly will also seek to maximize return by setting price accordingly at high levels. A bureaucracy, though it might not operate efficiently, will price things according to their cost, and has no incentive to raise the price beyond what it requires. Still not ideal, but not really the same as a monopoly.
Can't pass up that one. Really? Because in my experience, and according to every record I've ever seen, government projects tend to go over budget and over deadline even more than private contracts do. California, for example, is spending simply vast amounts of money on its education system, and getting very, very poor service out of it. The "price" (taxes) is massively inflated there, to the point that people and businesses are moving out of there faster than the rate of population growth.
I'm not going to disagree with the monopolies overpricing thing argument. That's far too well proven to disagree with. But contrasting government costs and prices to that seems inaccurate to me.
We are, after all, talking about an organization that will gladly pay over $100 for a hammer that can be purchased for $5 at a local Home Depot.
Exactly G-squared. Government has not proven itself to be a good steward of people's tax money much less their trust. Politicians say one thing and do another and they are never accountable to anything and even exempt themselves from being subject to the laws they pass for us.
Until all that changes government needs to be made much smaller and get the hell out of people's lives and wallets. It has no basis to be making decisions about what sort of education, health care or retirement plan a person should have.
If a person WANTS to participate in the ponzi scheme known as Social [in]Security then fine. But to steal the money from people's paychecks under a pretense, then do nothing but blow it all on buying votes for their own re-elections and other ponzi-schemes is no different than what Bernie Madoff did .... and he is now jail.
I rest my case.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
August 5, 2011 at 11:35 am
GSquared (8/5/2011)
For example, both will lead to limited choice and limited innovation. But a private monopoly will also seek to maximize return by setting price accordingly at high levels. A bureaucracy, though it might not operate efficiently, will price things according to their cost, and has no incentive to raise the price beyond what it requires. Still not ideal, but not really the same as a monopoly.
Can't pass up that one. Really? Because in my experience, and according to every record I've ever seen, government projects tend to go over budget and over deadline even more than private contracts do.
Hence my "might not operate efficiently" statement.
A private enterprise wants to charge you as much as you'll pay. A public one wants to charge what it needs to get the job done, and unfortunately it is not quite as ruthless at controlling its costs as the private one, so that can inflate more than it should.
But while one may go "over budget" more often, the initial budget in one case what "what do we think this will cost us", while the initial budget in the other was "what do we think we could make them pay".
There is also significant blurring of the lines as the two tend to intersect. A public department contracts with a public supplier, who due to lack of oversight charges as much as they want.
We are, after all, talking about an organization that will gladly pay over $100 for a hammer that can be purchased for $5 at a local Home Depot.
And Im saying that its more productive to say "which one of you idiots payed $100 for a hammer", then say "the government should never buy hammers".
August 5, 2011 at 11:44 am
GSquared (8/5/2011)
You're also generalizing beyond the scope of my statements on this subject. I don't "blanket no" the subject. There are places that I believe "common good" is best served by government, mainly in terms of mutual defense.
If you have a preset opinion on the things government should or should not do, then this is exactly what I meant.
You have your bucket of "best served" options, and you assume anything outside of it can't work. This is dangerous logical territory, because when someone suggests something new outside those options you have already decided it can't work and are only looking for support as to why, as opposed to examining the particulars of that issue.
I never said I'd never consider a new government program. You put those words in my mouth, not me.
There is a huge difference between having serious skepticism about government, and refusing to believe something good can come of it despite evidence to the contrary. I have biases, not prejudices, on the subject, and my biases are very, very subject to change upon presentation of adequate evidence. (There are big differences between bias and prejudgement. I'm assuming you either already know them or can familiarize yourself with them adequately.)
What I have not seen is anything to make me trust the US government with nationalized health insurance. On the contrary, I see a ton of evidence that it will, given the opportunity, turn it into a disaster of tremendous magnitude. Their track record on this is overwhelming.
Can I do something about that, as a voting citizen? Yep. And I work on that more than you might think, from the basics of trying to create an educated citizenry on up to national affairs like tax reform.
I didn't just wake up one morning and decide, "government sucks and politicians are evil". I spend a lot of time educating myself on the matter, and working with organizations and groups that are doing things I think are critical towards revitalizing our civilization and eliminating many of the forms of avoidable human suffering on this planet. A lot of my money, time/effort, and attention goes on those things.
There's very little worse than someone with strong negative opinions, who refuses to do something about the situations he dislikes so vigorously. That's not me. I work on this every day.
That's fine. There are many who lack that level of enlightenment yet share your general views, and in an internet debate it can sometimes be hard to tell one from the other.
I have no problem with people generally biased towards an outlook but working within the system to improve it. I have no problem with someone who looks at a whole picture, considers argument, then arrives at a different view than me.
I do have a problem with people who have an ideological perspective, and seek facts to support their argument (and ignore those which dont), and ideological purity, rather than pay attention to the particulars of a situation. There are too many of them, and whether it is at one extreme (communist) or the other (libertarian), they tend to muck things up for the rest of us.
August 5, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Nevyn (8/5/2011)
A private enterprise wants to charge you as much as you'll pay.
And there is something wrong with that? You obviously disapprove of profits. Private companies are not in the business of breaking even. On the other side of the coin, doubling the price of their product does not translate into double profits. Raise the price too high then people will stop buying the product or buy another brand.
Nevyn (8/5/2011)
A public one wants to charge what it needs to get the job done, and unfortunately it is not quite as ruthless at controlling its costs as the private one, so that can inflate more than it should.
I must ask, can you provide an actual example of this occurring (government only "charging" what it needs to get the job done, that is)? Because it is my experience that government increases its spending every year, even if it is more than what it takes to "get the job done". It is call it base line budgeting, and it means an automatic 7% increase in budget year after year whether the costs actually justify that increase or not. If they reduce the budget to a 5% increase they call it a "cut".
Nevyn (8/5/2011)
But while one may go "over budget" more often, the initial budget in one case what "what do we think this will cost us", while the initial budget in the other was "what do we think we could make them pay".
You have obviously have little or no experience in running your own business, doing marketing research, advertising to compete in the public marketplace to sell a product or a service. If all companies used your logic they would be out of business in no time.
A business cannot just print money when they fail to meet their payroll, nor can they force people to buy their products despite the fact that a better product might be available from a different business. Only government can do that.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
August 5, 2011 at 12:33 pm
This gets complicated quickly.
The philosopher Hegel, who was big on history, mentioned that Human flesh was once on the open market in some places long ago. How's that for unleashed capitalism?
Our government is here, in part, to keep businesses from becoming corrupt.
Government also, at least good government, is more transparent about what they do than businesses - that's how we found out about the $500 hammer, isn't it? Now a lot of legal settlements include a clause that prevents what happened from being known - silence of the victum is bought off. So we don't even know what's going on to some extent.
But now, I believe that businesses are buying off the US government. So the government itself is being corrupted with business whims/greed. Thus, I'm afraid that neither one is to be trusted.
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking
August 5, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Nevyn (8/5/2011)
GSquared (8/5/2011)
You're also generalizing beyond the scope of my statements on this subject. I don't "blanket no" the subject. There are places that I believe "common good" is best served by government, mainly in terms of mutual defense.
If you have a preset opinion on the things government should or should not do, then this is exactly what I meant.
You have your bucket of "best served" options, and you assume anything outside of it can't work. This is dangerous logical territory, because when someone suggests something new outside those options you have already decided it can't work and are only looking for support as to why, as opposed to examining the particulars of that issue.
I never said I'd never consider a new government program. You put those words in my mouth, not me.
There is a huge difference between having serious skepticism about government, and refusing to believe something good can come of it despite evidence to the contrary. I have biases, not prejudices, on the subject, and my biases are very, very subject to change upon presentation of adequate evidence. (There are big differences between bias and prejudgement. I'm assuming you either already know them or can familiarize yourself with them adequately.)
What I have not seen is anything to make me trust the US government with nationalized health insurance. On the contrary, I see a ton of evidence that it will, given the opportunity, turn it into a disaster of tremendous magnitude. Their track record on this is overwhelming.
Can I do something about that, as a voting citizen? Yep. And I work on that more than you might think, from the basics of trying to create an educated citizenry on up to national affairs like tax reform.
I didn't just wake up one morning and decide, "government sucks and politicians are evil". I spend a lot of time educating myself on the matter, and working with organizations and groups that are doing things I think are critical towards revitalizing our civilization and eliminating many of the forms of avoidable human suffering on this planet. A lot of my money, time/effort, and attention goes on those things.
There's very little worse than someone with strong negative opinions, who refuses to do something about the situations he dislikes so vigorously. That's not me. I work on this every day.
That's fine. There are many who lack that level of enlightenment yet share your general views, and in an internet debate it can sometimes be hard to tell one from the other.
I have no problem with people generally biased towards an outlook but working within the system to improve it. I have no problem with someone who looks at a whole picture, considers argument, then arrives at a different view than me.
I do have a problem with people who have an ideological perspective, and seek facts to support their argument (and ignore those which dont), and ideological purity, rather than pay attention to the particulars of a situation. There are too many of them, and whether it is at one extreme (communist) or the other (libertarian), they tend to muck things up for the rest of us.
Conclusion bias is definitely a major problem for a lot of people. All of the standard logical biases are, for that matter.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
August 5, 2011 at 12:47 pm
mtillman-921105 (8/5/2011)
Our government is here, in part, to keep businesses from becoming corrupt.
Well, government does have experience in corruption. lol What's the other part?
mtillman-921105 (8/5/2011)
Government also, at least good government, is more transparent about what they do than businesses - that's how we found out about the $500 hammer, isn't it?Now a lot of legal settlements include a clause that prevents what happened from being known - silence of the victum is bought off. So we don't even know what's going on to some extent.
But now, I believe that businesses are buying off the US government. So the government itself is being corrupted with business whims/greed. Thus, I'm afraid that neither one is to be trusted.
Wow.... we can't trust anyone.... all because of bad people and "businesses" corrupting all these dedicated and honest politicians just trying to do their jobs. sheesh
Have another glass of cool-aid.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
August 5, 2011 at 1:01 pm
sturner (8/5/2011)
mtillman-921105 (8/5/2011)
Our government is here, in part, to keep businesses from becoming corrupt.Well, government does have experience in corruption. lol What's the other part?
mtillman-921105 (8/5/2011)
Government also, at least good government, is more transparent about what they do than businesses - that's how we found out about the $500 hammer, isn't it?Now a lot of legal settlements include a clause that prevents what happened from being known - silence of the victum is bought off. So we don't even know what's going on to some extent.
But now, I believe that businesses are buying off the US government. So the government itself is being corrupted with business whims/greed. Thus, I'm afraid that neither one is to be trusted.
Wow.... we can't trust anyone.... all because of bad people and "businesses" corrupting all these dedicated and honest politicians just trying to do their jobs. sheesh
Have another glass of cool-aid.
Sturner, my grandfather was in politics, but got out of it saying that you couldn't be honest and a politician at the same time. Why is that? Because a politician has to get money from various groups and has to pretend that he's on everyone's side. So money corrupts the system too, not just business.
But do you think these businesses are pouring billions of dollars into Washington just for the fun of it? Really?
No system is without corruption, but the US government was a lot more honest about, say, 100 years ago before all these millions of dollars in legal bribery had taken over the place. Washington used to be a small city with modest shops and now look at it - it's filled with posh, expensive resteraunts. It wasn't always like that. "Follow the money" as they say.
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking
August 5, 2011 at 1:10 pm
mtillman-921105 (8/5/2011)
Sturner, my grandfather was in politics, but got out of it saying that you couldn't be honest and a politician at the same time. Why is that? Because a politician has to get money from various groups and has to pretend that he's on everyone's side. So money corrupts the system too, not just business.
But do you think these businesses are pouring billions of dollars into Washington just for the fun of it? Really?
No system is without corruption, but the US government was a lot more honest about, say, 100 years ago before all these millions of dollars in legal bribery had taken over the place. Washington used to be a small city with modest shops and now look at it - it's filled with posh, expensive resteraunts. It wasn't always like that. "Follow the money" as they say.
You have just made my point regarding why it is bad for governments to be so big and have so much control over people's lives. History is replete with examples of the misery left in the wake of governments drunk with power and their ultimate demise.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
August 5, 2011 at 1:24 pm
sturner (8/5/2011)
mtillman-921105 (8/5/2011)
Sturner, my grandfather was in politics, but got out of it saying that you couldn't be honest and a politician at the same time. Why is that? Because a politician has to get money from various groups and has to pretend that he's on everyone's side. So money corrupts the system too, not just business.
But do you think these businesses are pouring billions of dollars into Washington just for the fun of it? Really?
No system is without corruption, but the US government was a lot more honest about, say, 100 years ago before all these millions of dollars in legal bribery had taken over the place. Washington used to be a small city with modest shops and now look at it - it's filled with posh, expensive resteraunts. It wasn't always like that. "Follow the money" as they say.
You have just made my point regarding why it is bad for governments to be so big and have so much control over people's lives. History is replete with examples of the misery left in the wake of governments drunk with power and their ultimate demise.
No, you're committing an equivocation on the phrase "big government." Big government in the sense of health care is not necessarily bad in my view. "Big government" in the sense of communism, theocracy or fascism is indeed bad. But the two meanings are vastly different. England may have government health care, but I sure wouldn't call them a communist country because of it. LOL
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking
August 5, 2011 at 1:24 pm
sturner (8/5/2011)
Nevyn (8/5/2011)
A private enterprise wants to charge you as much as you'll pay.And there is something wrong with that? You obviously disapprove of profits. Private companies are not in the business of breaking even. On the other side of the coin, doubling the price of their product does not translate into double profits. Raise the price too high then people will stop buying the product or buy another brand.
Nevyn (8/5/2011)
A public one wants to charge what it needs to get the job done, and unfortunately it is not quite as ruthless at controlling its costs as the private one, so that can inflate more than it should.I must ask, can you provide an actual example of this occurring (government only "charging" what it needs to get the job done, that is)? Because it is my experience that government increases its spending every year, even if it is more than what it takes to "get the job done". It is call it base line budgeting, and it means an automatic 7% increase in budget year after year whether the costs actually justify that increase or not. If they reduce the budget to a 5% increase they call it a "cut".
Nevyn (8/5/2011)
But while one may go "over budget" more often, the initial budget in one case what "what do we think this will cost us", while the initial budget in the other was "what do we think we could make them pay".You have obviously have little or no experience in running your own business, doing marketing research, advertising to compete in the public marketplace to sell a product or a service. If all companies used your logic they would be out of business in no time.
A business cannot just print money when they fail to meet their payroll, nor can they force people to buy their products despite the fact that a better product might be available from a different business. Only government can do that.
I think you didn't quite grasp the context of the comments you were responding to.
I was contrasting a privately held monopoly to a government bureaucracy. Hence competition is not a factor.
And I did not say profit was wrong, right or wrong has nothing to do with it. Again we are talking about monopoly vs bureaucracy and the cost to the end consumer. Profit isn't wrong, but buying something with a 200% markup is more expensive than buying it at cost.
As for your comments on governmental budgeting, those are political problems, not systemic ones, and some governments manage them far better than others. The reason the budgets scale up is to account for both inflation and population growth, when both of those factors are unknown at the time of budgeting. If they are growing much faster than the underlying true cost is, again that tends to come back to a root cause of disinterested or uninformed voters.
Furthermore, as someone who as seen budgeting at a few different corporations, don't believe for a second that there isn't a lot of waste there. Perhaps not as much or as consistently, but the economic theory that wasteful companies fail and efficient ones succeed and thus private enterprise is generally not wasteful often does not bear out in reality, because few industries have the level of competition that would be required to make that true.
August 8, 2011 at 6:26 am
sturner (8/5/2011)
mtillman-921105 (8/5/2011)
Our government is here, in part, to keep businesses from becoming corrupt.Well, government does have experience in corruption. lol What's the other part?
mtillman-921105 (8/5/2011)
Government also, at least good government, is more transparent about what they do than businesses - that's how we found out about the $500 hammer, isn't it?Now a lot of legal settlements include a clause that prevents what happened from being known - silence of the victum is bought off. So we don't even know what's going on to some extent.
But now, I believe that businesses are buying off the US government. So the government itself is being corrupted with business whims/greed. Thus, I'm afraid that neither one is to be trusted.
Wow.... we can't trust anyone.... all because of bad people and "businesses" corrupting all these dedicated and honest politicians just trying to do their jobs. sheesh
Have another glass of cool-aid.
Saw a great comic one time. Two men in suits, one of them saying to the other, "It's just not fair. 99 percent of politicians are giving the rest of a us a bad name."
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
August 8, 2011 at 7:04 pm
I got one better than that. "Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason." 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
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