Continuing conversations regarding the incompetence of Republicans

Regarding the free market, and the governmental effects on it:

The "free" market I believe in does currently exist and it is people who believe that the government is going to solve all of their problems who are taking it away from me.

Well, I just don't think that's the case. Take me for example. I'm a liberal who believes in the power of government. I'm also a free market capitalist. I, of course, participate as a consumer. But I also started my own company, paid employees and dealt with health care costs and ran it successfully for 4 years before being bought out. While not an MBA by any stretch of the imagination, I'm not unfamiliar with the market and it's massive strengths. I don't believe in "taking away people's money".

The slippery slope of regulating all of our shopping choices leads to less variety, less choice and eventually stagnation.

But the lezzie fair belief that the consumer feedback is all powerful has resulted in some staggering failures. We still pay the highest percentage of our GDP for health care and still have 50 million uninsured in the US (most of the children). We still have the crappiest TV shows in existence, despite having the most sophisticated market on the planet.

My point is simply that because things develop organically - i.e. the US economy grew over 300 years, it didn't spring from the brow of Zeus - there are a lot of aberrant features of the system that really suck. Worse, they are systemic pieces of crap that the system itself can't get rid of. Again, just my opinion.

And the point of the TAP article is that it is undeniable that the government has a huge effect on the economy. It's a huge purchaser, has a huge amount of capital flowing through it and most importantly, it is the lender of last resort - full faith, credit and all that jazz. Add to the Federal pie the State pie and you have an astounding amount of people who are employed by the government. So if nothing else, if you suddenly affect the pay of these employees - by cutting it, as the current fad is - then you really affect the economy. After all, consumer spending is something like 70% of our GDP. Pay increases not seen by government workers have a verifiable impact on our economy. Government "layoffs" have even more impact. Add to this already amazing blow to your economy the impact to the recipients of these services and it's simply astounding what RoveCo is .

So, while you can criticize it, and wish it was different, you simply cannot ignore the impact it has. Saying to the State Governments: "let them eat cake" is a blow to your economy.

If you believe in "tough love", then this is an acceptable action. But regardless of that, it's considered irresponsible Calvinism by 49% of the US population.

But, you, as the same person who sees the excess and extremes to which government can go (based upon an opinion or viewpoint of a given matter) still see salvation in all of the regulatory powers the government holds.

Well, Government is just a tool . It's whatever we want it to be. I don't think Government is the silver bullet that will solve all our problems. Our total system skill inventory is vast and pretty darn studly. We have a large body of legal theory of a liberal democracy based on an astoundingly free market. Add to this our astounding knowledge of large scale distributed system design and we have a lot of knowledge to apply to the problem.

There are some things the Government does astoundingly well. Things the market can't even hope to do in its current form. Things like the Internet which we are now carrying out this interesting conversation. A DARPA project that got out of control when unleashed in the fertile American scientific community. It only became profitable after it was big enough.

There are some things that only the government can do. Things I'm not willing to let the market take care of - i.e., freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

I believe there is no way to make government (or the State) do things that benefit everyone unless it simply allows us to interact with one another on our own terms. (Of course, within reason. I don't need my neighbor beating me with a shovel because we had a disagreement as to who owns the tree that crosses our property line.)

I think it's in the parentheses that we can find agreement. Laws are prescriptive not descriptive. That is, they describe what we want to have happen, not what will happen.

Part of the problem I have with Libertarian (with a big "L") theory is that the law doesn't affect the market. To me, the ultimate end of the Libertarian free market fantasy is the Russian black market. Lot's of guns, private "enforcers", bribes, cheats, double crosses, and a lot of other unsavory stuff.

Basically, because I believe the market is efficient, I believe that it will find the simplest and cheapest solution. In an unfettered world, the cheapest solution is the bullet. And it's because this is the default behavior of human beings, we have to have some other mechanism than the market to ensure this kind of crap doesn't happen. Businessmen shouldn't be required to have their own private military. And if your economic theory predicts a high probability (if not outright certainty) of private militaries. . . well, I think your way off track and need to re-evaluate your solution.

And the point of the TAP article is that RoveCo has taken extraordinary actions in regard to civil rights. Amazing, extra constitutional actions. Justified on a state of "war" with a noun. Get that? A noun.

If the same person is unwilling to take pride in his/her own property, how do you expect them to take pride in public property? I don't believe in any magic which makes people take care of private property - but I do think people are provided with more of an incentive than when it is public property. Ownership and a return on investment is one heck of an incentive when compared with well, I don't own it, so I don't need to really care or take care...

Well, the beauty of managed ownership is that you don't have to care. By definition, this is what stewardship is all about. Part of the specialization that we exploit as human beings is that there are people who actually want to take care of things that we should all be taking care of. By collecting all these people together and funding them, it frees us to take care of the things we care about. There is an entire private industry of managed care - otherwise, there wouldn't be financial managers.

There are things we collectively own. I, for one, do not want them sold off to the highest bidder. As much as I distrust the government, I distrust individuals even less. By definition, private ownership is an individual affair. The private owner may not share the same priorities. And once the public property is sold, I no longer have a say in what happens.

I don't think this applies to everything. But it does apply to somethings I treasure dearly. It also applies to things that I may not have any personal use for, but are extremely valuable - such as the public air waves. And as a part owner of such valuable property, I wish to extract certain payments in exchange for such valuable real estate.

And that's all part of the market. The laws enforce the environment and the market adapts. I do not wish to give up my ability to set these boundary conditions. It's my property (however a minuscule share I might have) and I don't think we should sell it at rock bottom prices based on some theory that the buyer will be able to manage it better than the system we have now.

Burden of proof, and all that...

Ownership and a return on investment is one heck of an incentive when compared with well, I don't own it, so I don't need to really care or take care...

True, but my theory of government only requires a reasonable number of civic minded folk willing to take stewardship for things the rest of us take for granted. Private ownership requires that everyone doing the owning have their corresponding share + <group share factor> in order for the scheme to work. And left to their own devices, I just don't even trust myself - much less anyone else.

Government agencies at least have the patina of being responsible to the public. Private corporations do not have any such requirement.

I agree that my point on Iraq was poorly stated (that is an understatement). In the hopes of being concise (and wanting some sleep at the late hour), I simply meant this: Iraq has been a public policy issue since the early 90's and it is nice to know that the Husseins are less likely to have continued influence in Iraq today than they did in Iraq 10 months ago. Hussein was a sworn enemy of the US and I do, indeed, believe that he was a threat. Now, the way in which we went about removing him from power is a whole other story... Hmmm... where are we at now? $90 billion... its just one pork-barrel-spending-wet-dream. I am glad that we finally did something decisive about Iraq - namely trying to kill Saddam. How we did it, however, deserves so much more criticism than I care to spend time writing about now.

Yea, I know. I was just on a riff by that point and was "liberally" reading your comments. . .

The point of the TAP article is simply that not having any rational semblance of a plan for post-war occupation of Iraq is simply inexcusable. That alone deserves the the scorn of every individual on the planet - as it's going to affect the entire for decades if not centuries.

And, ironically, I think it is precisely the culture of corporatism that led to our war with Iraq. Corporations are one way organizations - at least in this stage of their evolution. It could be with some care and innovation we could make Corporations real, honest to "Bob" citizens that we would feel comfortable entrusting large swaths of our shared holdings. Perhaps.

But right now, I feel it's simply like handing an AK-47 to a hormonally driven teenager who's being rejected by Girls and who doesn't fit in at school. It's simply irresponsible.

As a scientist, I believe in Evolution. And right now, we're evolving our Market and our Government. We balance the responsibilities between the two organizations based on their current capabilities, not their potential. We have a tremendously long way to go in getting corporations to have the transparency required for governance. They are as opaque as a four foot thick piece of lead.

And I do believe that we will get to that point. Someday we won't need a tenth of the amount of regulations and government that we currently have today.

But things take time. The disasters we have all around the planet, not to mention our own problems with things like health care and our energy markets show that there's a lot of work to do.

To simply cut out the government and go cold turkey will simply result in the equivalent of the Russian black market which will devolve into despotism. That's the corporate way.

Anyways, thanks for the interesting conversation. Sorry for my long, rambling and soap box-ish reply.