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
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.