chris_gerrib (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chris_gerrib) wrote2014-08-05 09:22 am
chris_gerrib) wrote2014-08-05 09:22 am
Links
1) A very interesting article: why you should stop believing in evolution. TL;DR version = one believes in religion and comprehends science.
2) Yet another Republican-led House panel finds no misconduct or attempt to misled in Benghazi affair.
A twofer from Gin and Tacos:
3) a lack of constraint. Constraint is used in the technical sense to mean people should believe things that make sense together. In other words, if balancing the budget is important, raising taxes should be okay.
4) We Americans have little faith in special knowledge, and only with the greatest difficulty is the idea being forced upon us that not every man is capable of doing every job. But Mr. Ford belongs to the traditions of self-made men, to that primitive Americanism which has held the theory that a successful manufacturer could turn his hand with equal success to every other occupation.
This quote above shows one of the (many, many) failures of libertarianism. There really is "special knowledge" and we ignore that at our peril. ETA This is more a critique of people who are self-described libertarians vs. the philosophy as a whole. See, for example, how we can't trust climate scientists because reasons.
2) Yet another Republican-led House panel finds no misconduct or attempt to misled in Benghazi affair.
A twofer from Gin and Tacos:
3) a lack of constraint. Constraint is used in the technical sense to mean people should believe things that make sense together. In other words, if balancing the budget is important, raising taxes should be okay.
4) We Americans have little faith in special knowledge, and only with the greatest difficulty is the idea being forced upon us that not every man is capable of doing every job. But Mr. Ford belongs to the traditions of self-made men, to that primitive Americanism which has held the theory that a successful manufacturer could turn his hand with equal success to every other occupation.
This quote above shows one of the (many, many) failures of libertarianism. There really is "special knowledge" and we ignore that at our peril. ETA This is more a critique of people who are self-described libertarians vs. the philosophy as a whole. See, for example, how we can't trust climate scientists because reasons.
no subject
I grow weary of being your research assistant
Yah, and it don't pay, neither. On the other hand, you weren't hired for the position, so quit yer gripin'.
Or as they say in free markets, “If you don't wanna do it, don't!”
Certainly the price of gold fluctuates - but as a standard of currency value it's a benchmark, more indicative than, say, the cost of a loaf of bread, the other staple (so to speak) of economists.
The teal deer version of all this is, Raising taxes is Plan B. before you raise taxes, be very sure of what you're funding. If all you're doing is thickening the lard that insulates civil service bureaucracy and sweetening the barrelled pork… Well, you might want to reconsider, Robin Hood, before you start playing Santa Claus with other people's money.
> In 2003, the [Department of Homeland Security] came under fire (http://baron-waste.livejournal.com/624011.html) after the media revealed
> that Laura Callahan, Deputy Chief Information Officer at DHS with responsibilities for
> sensitive national security databases, had obtained her advanced computer science degrees
> through a diploma mill in a small town in Wyoming. The department was blamed for up to $2
> billion of waste and fraud after audits by the Government Accountability Office revealed
> widespread misuse of government credit cards by DHS employees, with purchases including
> beer brewing kits, $70,000 of plastic dog booties that were later deemed unusable, boats
> purchased at double the retail price (many of which later could not be found), and iPods
> ostensibly for use in "data storage"…
> In July 2006, the Office of Personnel Management conducted a survey of federal employees
> in all 36 federal agencies on job satisfaction and how they felt their respective agency
> was headed. DHS was last or near to last in every category including;
• 33rd on the talent management index
• 35th on the leadership and knowledge management index
• 36th on the job satisfaction index
• 36th on the results-oriented performance culture index
>
> The low scores were attributed to major concerns about basic supervision, management and
> leadership within the agency…
Your Tax Dollars at Work!
no subject
Just checking.
Gold is, in fact, no more useful a measure of anything than the price of a loaf of bread - it's actually essentially a feature of trying to use commodity values for anything really compared to fiat money.
And as regards waste in government departments... there is, as they say, a reason Dilbert is set in the private sector. I could tell you stories about fortune 500 software companies that make the government look like a paragon.
And, in fact, let's look at actual government run healthcare systems spending and outcomes versus private outcomes. How about that old UK versus US chestnut because as a realtively fiscally conservative person, I WANT the kind of spending and results profile of the NHS and not the cash wasting mess that is the US system.
I also don't want to force companies to essentially run healthcare services for their employees because, speaking as an employer, I'm not a frigging doctor.
Germany, for example, has a higher tax burden than the US and has a successful manufacturing and exporting base and spends a higher proportion of national income than the US does. That suggests there really isn't a problem with the size of the US government.
Secondly, and I cannot possibly say this any more clearly. THE SIZE OF THE US DEBT IS REALLY NOT THAT BAD. It's not actually that bad historically, note the net debt is much lower than it was in WW2 (again, Krugman is your friend for data) and the US economy is absolutely huge.
The real problem remains, as it has been since 2000, a bunch of unfunded wars, massive unfunded tax cuts, and a massive gift to seniors to buy their votes.
Take those 3 out of the equation and when the economy crashed in 2008 the US would have been able to deal with the catastrophe properly.
But it didn't. Rather than taking 5 years to fix, it's going to take 15-20.