U.S. Politics: A Democracy In Decay

[Week]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

To be fair, they kept it in place in case the bug came back at a later date. That said, it's past time to eliminate it. 

From the article:

Quote

The agency didn’t provide an estimate of how much time is currently spent on Y2K paperwork, but Linda Springer, an OMB senior adviser, acknowledged that it isn’t a lot since those requirements are already often ignored in practice.

Probably not particularly necessary -- probably not particularly impactful. But by all means, let's extrapolate this anecdote to the federal government as a whole (not referring to you here Tywin)

[Gertrude]

1 hour ago, WinterFox said:

Americans don't want healthcare, they've proven it by electing opponents of national healthcare into office.

Just a single anecdote, but my father is a die-hard republican who would never vote democrat, but wants universal healthcare. So yes, he's one of those who keep voting in people opposed to it, but he's voting party line, not individual issues.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Earlier today I was listening to an excellent podcast that can be found here. It covers conspiracy theories, how they work, how they originate, how they spread etc. and it suddenly dawned on me that this might be why Trump's core base stays so loyal. At the heart of most of his policy proposals during the campaign was a conspiracy theory. And moreover, sometimes he just flat out spread conspiracy theories. This is important and unique to Trump because it's very difficult to convince someone who believes in a conspiracy theory that they are wrong. The only way to effectively do so is to have someone in their in group show them why they are wrong. But this likely doesn't happen very often because we've segregated ourselves politically in this country, and it's quite likely that most Trump supporters, the ones who were with him from the start, believe in the same conspiracy theories as Trump, so they're unlikely to interact with a lot of people in their in group who don't believe them and can show them why they are inaccurate. Now that's not to say that this effect doesn't happen with other elected officials across the political spectrum, but it seems like it would be strongest with a dyed in the wool Trump supporter.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, Week said:

From the article:

Probably not particularly necessary -- probably not particularly impactful. But by all means, let's extrapolate this anecdote to the federal government as a whole (not referring to you here Tywin)

Haha I don't care. The post was purely for real estate reasons. 

[Cas Stark]

16 minutes ago, Week said:

From the article:

Probably not particularly necessary -- probably not particularly impactful. But by all means, let's extrapolate this anecdote to the federal government as a whole (not referring to you here Tywin)

So it isn't necessary and hasn't been for almost 2 decades, but it's okay because no one really paid much attention to it or spent time on it.....and this is supposed to be re assuring?  LOL.  Indeed, I do extrapolate this and many other anecdotes and lack of results of federal programs to conclude that the taxpayers are very poorly served in almost all instances.  

[Week]

Just now, Cas Stark said:

So it isn't necessary and hasn't been for almost 2 decades, but it's okay because no one really paid much attention to it or spent time on it.....and this is supposed to be re assuring?  LOL.  Indeed, I do extrapolate this and many other anecdotes and lack of results of federal programs to conclude that the taxpayers are very poorly served in almost all instances.  

I've worked in multiple professional environments with more waste that was clearly unnecessary. All organizations have waste. We should continually endeavor to reduce said waste.

Getting uppity about an anecdote like this is a waste of time for the electrons inconvenienced to make the multiple posts here. 

"the taxpayers are very poorly served in almost all instances" - Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.... /rolleyes - There are half a hundred better examples that would still be foolhardy and unnecessary to make that same claim.

[Cas Stark]

LOL, yeah, I know it's much more fun to just rant about the evil conservatives and the dumb Trump supporters over and over and over.

So, carry on all.

[Week]

Whatever point you were trying to make was not supported by the article. It was worth a chuckle - I'll grant that.

[Inigima]

I'm watching CNN talk about Pence hiring outside counsel and I don't understand why everyone keeps credulously repeating the "Flynn misled him" line. Why does everyone assume that's true? Why does everyone assume Pence didn't know?

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Cas Stark said:

Seventeen years after the Year 2000 bug came and went, the federal government will finally stop preparing for it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-15/trump-orders-government-to-stop-work-on-y2k-bug-17-years-later

 

It's things like this that cause people like me to be skeptical of the U.S. federal government's ability to do anything efficiently.

Yes, Republicans, have this old story in their heads:

In the begging there was some hard working libertarians that mixed their labor with land, or whatever, and produced goods and services for the market. And on these markets everything just worked fine and dandy, and the libertarians traded gold and libertarian fairy dust, or whatever, and it was paradise.

And then the government moved in and ruined everything.

Except, in reality, the rise of modern capitalism really grew up right along with the state and without the strengthening of government and the state, capitalism as we know it, probably never would have happened, particularly if we are talking about England, where I’d imagine most historians would say where modern capitalism started.

Nobody is saying government gets everything right. It doesn’t. But, it’s a complete piece of Republican bull to say it never is capable of getting anything right. Medicare for instance is quite popular and it has very low administrative cost.

And just compare this alleged government failure to, oh I don't know, let's say the private market failure during the last financial crises?

And the fact of the matter is private markets don’t always work as well some people would like us to believe. There are things like informational aysemtries and externalities and other issues. And private actors make mistakes.

The idea that government can’t get anything right, as compared to an idealized free market, that doesn’t exist is just a tired old story that conservatives like to tell.

Look, I think markets have a lot of useful purposes. And think there are positives to market based economies. But, just saying, “free market good” and “government bad” is just nonsense.
 

[Inigima]

Re: free markets, I think the optimal setup depends on the industry in question and its attendant incentives. I would much rather buy fancy tech gadgets from a private (non-governmental, that is, not non-traded) firm that has incentive to innovate and improve its products. The incentive is to produce a better product and/or sell it cheaper.

Something like health insurance, on the other hand, I think will always produce terrible results when handled by the private sector, because I think it is fundamentally incompatible with a profit motive. The incentive in the private health insurance market will always be to deny claims and not to cover the people who most need coverage. Private insurers will always want to bring the ratio of money taken to claims paid as close to zero as possible. It's not an incentive structure that leads to positive health outcomes. If, for ideological reasons, you believe that doesn't matter, fine, but the line of bull being sold to the American public is that private insurance will produce better public health outcomes, and that's just demonstrably false.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

12 minutes ago, Inigima said:

I'm watching CNN talk about Pence hiring outside counsel and I don't understand why everyone keeps credulously repeating the "Flynn misled him" line. Why does everyone assume that's true? Why does everyone assume Pence didn't know?

Cause Jebus and Mike Pence's wife doesn't let him take meals with Russians unless she's present.

[IamMe90]

4 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Cause Jebus and Mike Pence's wife doesn't let him take meals with Russians unless she's present.

Honest question: Have you ever thought about doing stand up? Because that's some shit I would actively go to see!

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Just now, IamMe90 said:

Honest question: Have you ever thought about doing stand up? Because that's some shit I would actively go to see!

I gave it an extremely short whirl back in the early 90's, but I just didn't have the confidence necessary to see it through.  

[felice]

44 minutes ago, Inigima said:

Re: free markets, I think the optimal setup depends on the industry in question and its attendant incentives. I would much rather buy fancy tech gadgets from a private (non-governmental, that is, not non-traded) firm that has incentive to innovate and improve its products. The incentive is to produce a better product and/or sell it cheaper.

The incentives are a bit more complicated than that. What sells is the perception of quality, which isn't necessarily the same as actual quality, and planned obsolescence is a problem.

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yes, Republicans, have this old story in their heads:

In the begging there was some hard working libertarians that mixed their labor with land, or whatever, and produced goods and services for the market. And on these markets everything just worked fine and dandy, and the libertarians traded gold and libertarian fairy dust, or whatever, and it was paradise.

And then the government moved in and ruined everything.

Except, in reality, the rise of modern capitalism really grew up right along with the state and without the strengthening of government and the state, capitalism as we know it, probably never would have happened, particularly if we are talking about England, where I’d imagine most historians would say where modern capitalism started.

Nobody is saying government gets everything right. It doesn’t. But, it’s a complete piece of Republican bull to say it never is capable of getting anything right. Medicare for instance is quite popular and it has very low administrative cost.

And just compare this alleged government failure to, oh I don't know, let's say the private market failure during the last financial crises?

And the fact of the matter is private markets don’t always work as well some people would like us to believe. There are things like informational aysemtries and externalities and other issues. And private actors make mistakes.

The idea that government can’t get anything right, as compared to an idealized free market, that doesn’t exist is just a tired old story that conservatives like to tell.

Look, I think markets have a lot of useful purposes. And think there are positives to market based economies. But, just saying, “free market good” and “government bad” is just nonsense.
 

The free market let Donald Trump go bankrupt four times. I consider that a useful purpose. 

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, Inigima said:

I'm watching CNN talk about Pence hiring outside counsel and I don't understand why everyone keeps credulously repeating the "Flynn misled him" line. Why does everyone assume that's true? Why does everyone assume Pence didn't know?

We assume he is an idiot? 

[Inigima]

14 minutes ago, felice said:

The incentives are a bit more complicated than that. What sells is the perception of quality, which isn't necessarily the same as actual quality, and planned obsolescence is a problem.

Well, yes, my simplification into a two-paragraph pair of examples is -- as you might expect -- a bit light on detail. I think the point I'm making stands.

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Seventeen years after the Year 2000 bug came and went, the federal government will finally stop preparing for it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-15/trump-orders-government-to-stop-work-on-y2k-bug-17-years-later

 

It's things like this that cause people like me to be skeptical of the U.S. federal government's ability to do anything efficiently.

Ironically, it's politicians that vapidly seek headlines for "cuts" and "deregulation" like you that actually curb the federal bureaucracy's efficiency.  From the article you linked:

Quote

The agency didn’t provide an estimate of how much time is currently spent on Y2K paperwork, but Linda Springer, an OMB senior adviser [and Trump appointee], acknowledged that it isn’t a lot since those requirements are already often ignored in practice.

Mulvaney said he hopes that by publicly eliminating the rules, departments and agencies will be inspired to review their own policies and procedures to reduce inefficiencies.

Reviewing rules that aren't followed anyway causes inefficiency.  Notice and comment on rules ensures the bureaucracy is the most open and democratic aspect of the federal government in terms of its policymaking role.  It's the common agency problem, and subsequent hubris by every incoming president and Congress that they need to "revitalize" the bureaucracy that in actuality bogs down career civil servants in having to explain their institutional memory to purely self-interested officeholders.

ETA:  Sorry @Week, didn't see you covered much of the above before I posted.

[Week]

10 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

ETA:  Sorry @Week, didn't see you covered much of the above before I posted.

You put it better than I -- no worries.