EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 9132
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28804 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22405 Posts
On November 03 2017 06:13 Nevuk wrote: This explains a lot : https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/925744754129883136 He who represents himself has a fool for a client Explains why he keeps going on talk shows to further incriminate himself. | ||
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IyMoon
United States1249 Posts
On November 03 2017 06:16 Liquid`Drone wrote: Carter page is a treasure. ^ | ||
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mozoku
United States708 Posts
On November 03 2017 06:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I'm not actually saying it's necessarily a funding problem and in my previous post I tried to portray it as a mentality problem.  I am trying to contest the (frequently assessed by americans) notion that government services are inherently inferior, but I totally see why and how it's difficult to change that when I also see it as a self-perpetuating stereotype. I even see self-proclaimed 'liberals' share this belief, and the inefficiency of various american government services serves as proof.I understand that this list https://www.bi.no/forskning/norsk-kundebarometer/ isn't understandable to other people, but I'm linking it for reference anyway. It's a list over companies operating in Norway according to how pleased people are with it. Number 1, flytoget, is a government owned train company, number 4 on the list is the government owned wine monopoly (only kind of store allowed to sell alcohol stronger than 4.7%). The support for the Wine Monopoly is especially impressive, because quite some people used to push for allowing stores to sell wine and are negative towards the concept of a wine monopoly - but these efforts have largely been halted because it's so well ran and because they have such competent employees. I think it's interesting because these experiences are in direct conflict with the notion that you need competition to create the best service - I think it's possible to achieve even better results through the deliberate installment of a positive, competence-based and customer-friendly mentality I have a hard time believing that people who work for any government (or any sufficiently large organization for that matter) are just some better brand of person who purely works for the good of others and doesn't care about their salary. Also, that "deliberate installment" sentence sounds scarily like brainwashing. On November 03 2017 06:07 Plansix wrote: Government services can’t fail, unlike the private sector. If the fire department does a poor job, we can’t shutter it or just open up a new one. Same with schools or water treatment. The private sector has an unfair advantage that they don’t provide critical services that the surrounding area relies on to function. And having worked for both, the private sector is just as inefficient. The problem with the US is that we treat government services like for profit industries and destroy them if they fail to meet expectations. So it is never a debate about how to refine or improve. It is a fight to allow the agency to continue to exist. I'm not claiming that the private sector is some black magic that creates efficiency by merely being private. I'm saying that government agencies that are not subject to competition (or are subject to competition but subsidized by limitless tax dollars) don't have any incentive to become more efficient, and thus won't. The private sector is not "just as inefficient." I don't know what world you're living in where the Soviet Union and Mao's China and NK didn't utterly fail, or where US government agencies weren't destroyed by private competition (where applicable). | ||
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
On November 03 2017 06:35 Gorsameth wrote: He who represents himself has a fool for a client Explains why he keeps going on talk shows to further incriminate himself. He doesn't have a lawyer, but he does have "formal and informal advisers", whatever that means. | ||
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mahrgell
Germany3943 Posts
On November 03 2017 06:57 mozoku wrote: The private sector is not "just as inefficient." I don't know what world you're living in where the Soviet Union and Mao's China and NK didn't utterly fail, or where US government agencies weren't destroyed by private competition (where applicable). Yes, the only alternative to the ultimate rule of the free market are NK, SU and Mao China. There is absolutely nothing else. | ||
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
On November 03 2017 06:35 Gorsameth wrote: He who represents himself has a fool for a client Explains why he keeps going on talk shows to further incriminate himself. me yesterday: "his lawyer is an idiot for letting him go on talk shows" me today: "oh" | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Sessions better brace for round 3 before the Senate. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28804 Posts
On November 03 2017 06:57 mozoku wrote: I have a hard time believing that people who work for any government (or any sufficiently large organization for that matter) are just some better brand of person who purely works for the good of others and doesn't care about their salary. Also, that "deliberate installment" sentence sounds scarily like brainwashing. Of course people care about their salary. But when government services are good, recognized as good, and the people who work there aren't branded as lazy leeches, then giving government workers competitive salaries, which means that the most talented workers also want to work there, becomes more of a possibility. (I mean to be fair private sector still gets higher pay in Norway as well, but the discrepancy is much smaller, and government jobs are sufficient to be above the threshold of 'what amount of money is required to be happy'. ) Much like the american insistence that 'public service is bad' becomes a self-perpetuating stereotype, the Norwegian notion that 'public service is good' becomes one, too. I didn't say anything about the morality of people or that people in government services are 'a better brand'. But I do think that to some degree, removing the incentive for profit can give preferable results, in particular with regard to how the employees experience their work day, and having genuinely happy, not overworked employees leads to a better customer experience. I'm not saying everything should be nationalized, for example in Norway, telecommunications became vastly improved post-privatization. And by 'deliberate installment of a positive, competence-based and customer-friendly mentality' I just mean that there were smart, competent people who conducted research on how to best organize an organization (like the wine monopoly), what the customers cared about, how they could best improve to match customer expectations, and then they made alterations to match the research findings. For example every wine monopoly store has staff with competence regarding how best to match wine with food, because this was something people desired, so you can go there, describe the dinner you're planning to make including what sauce you're going for, what your price range is, and then they select what they think is the best purchase for you. As they are not profit driven and because the markup is not so different for expensive and inexpensive wines, they might find you a $20 bottle even if you give a $25 price range - something I hardly ever experience in pubs or restaurants. As a customer, I feel this improves my experience. Competition is not a requirement, it's just a way of fostering the drive for improvement. Imo it comes with a positive (even better incentive to improve faster because not going broke is indeed really important) and a negative (desire for profit is likely to lead to worse conditions for workers which is also important). For example, American waiters are reputedly more friendly than European waiters (explained by tipping culture), but less competent (explained by worker conditions being worse leading to faster replacement rates). | ||
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hummingbird23
Norway359 Posts
On November 03 2017 06:57 mozoku wrote: I have a hard time believing that people who work for any government (or any sufficiently large organization for that matter) are just some better brand of person who purely works for the good of others and doesn't care about their salary. Also, that "deliberate installment" sentence sounds scarily like brainwashing. I'm not claiming that the private sector is some black magic that creates efficiency by merely being private. I'm saying that government agencies that are not subject to competition (or are subject to competition but subsidized by limitless tax dollars) don't have any incentive to become more efficient, and thus won't. The private sector is not "just as inefficient." I don't know what world you're living in where the Soviet Union and Mao's China and NK didn't utterly fail, or where US government agencies weren't destroyed by private competition (where applicable). I live in Norway. Vinmonopolet (literally translated wine monopoly) has some of the best trained employees of any wine store I have ever patronized. The whole idea that private corporations are inherently more efficient because free market and profit incentive is simply a dogmatic axiom that somehow hasn't been rigoriously tested. Also, people that give a shit about the value of their jobs is a seriously underrated proposition. | ||
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mozoku
United States708 Posts
On November 03 2017 07:06 mahrgell wrote: Yes, the only alternative to the ultimate rule of the free market are NK, SU and Mao China. There is absolutely nothing else. I never said that, did I? Do you see the irony in the fact that you (and Plansix) misconstrued my examples as a necessary dichotomy, implied I advocated for "ultimate rule of the free market" (even though I acknowledged markets don't work everywhere in multiple places in my posts), then accused me of arguing in bad faith? I never claimed socializing the healthcare system would make us Venezuela ffs. Or are you asserting that the Soviet Union, NK, and Mao's China didn't fail due to their inefficient economies? There's literally nothing controversial about saying "markets impose discipline on participants when there is competition." Above poster: Are not the examples in the above paragraph (at least NK/SK and Mao/Deng China) basically laboratory-quality experiments that show that competition and markets drive efficiency (at least on a macro-level)? Also, the fact that Norway has a great government-run wine monopoly (from a customer's perspective) doesn't even demonstrate your point because you can hire top talent and use it to create a good customer experience merely by throwing lots of money around (as governments are capable of doing at taxpayers' expense'), but that doesn't mean whatsoever that it's an efficient operation. And even it it's efficient--I don't doubt for a minute that they're are some well-run government agencies around the world (that's a large population and sometimes lightning just strikes anywhere), but they're the exception rather than the rule judging from empirical evidence as hypothesized by perfectly reasonable theory. | ||
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lestye
United States4208 Posts
On November 03 2017 07:11 Plansix wrote: I love the discussions were we go from the US at will employment private sector to Soviet Union and Mao's China like its some sort of binary fucking option. Makes for really productive discussions. Pfft, how many governments does the CIA have to topple and people they have to kill to prove to you people that socialism doesn't work?!?! | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On November 03 2017 06:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I'm not actually saying it's necessarily a funding problem and in my previous post I tried to portray it as a mentality problem. I am trying to contest the (frequently assessed by americans) notion that government services are inherently inferior, but I totally see why and how it's difficult to change that when I also see it as a self-perpetuating stereotype. I even see self-proclaimed 'liberals' share this belief, and the inefficiency of various american government services serves as proof.I understand that this list https://www.bi.no/forskning/norsk-kundebarometer/ isn't understandable to other people, but I'm linking it for reference anyway. It's a list over companies operating in Norway according to how pleased people are with it. Number 1, flytoget, is a government owned train company, number 4 on the list is the government owned wine monopoly (only kind of store allowed to sell alcohol stronger than 4.7%). The support for the Wine Monopoly is especially impressive, because quite some people used to push for allowing stores to sell wine and are negative towards the concept of a wine monopoly - but these efforts have largely been halted because it's so well ran and because they have such competent employees. I think it's interesting because these experiences are in direct conflict with the notion that you need competition to create the best service - I think it's possible to achieve even better results through the deliberate installment of a positive, competence-based and customer-friendly mentality I'm saying the government could do a much better job showing it is up to doing the job, period. The same bureaucracy that gave us one hundred thousand dead veterans on wait lists may run the health care of the country in the future. I'm constantly assured that the oversight is just peachy and it's all the fault of the evil Republicans. If the track record was more shit like the Øresund Bridge and less of the Form 1040 Schedule A & C delightful tax system, I might even be persuaded. Mozoku has put in much more work explaining the problems in efficiency, some of which remain even if we stipulate much of the gross mismanagement is removed. One two three four. I think the forum is a little too reflexively anti-market (But it's been proven!!!!) to engage in comparisons. You might as well try and tell a Trump primary voter that we should sign more free trade agreements and reduce existing tariffs. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15743 Posts
On November 03 2017 07:08 ticklishmusic wrote: me yesterday: "his lawyer is an idiot for letting him go on talk shows" me today: "oh" I've been so puzzled with Carter Page throughout this whole thing. At so many times, it has felt like he said something extremely bad, yet is well spoken, articulate and clearly not an idiot. So then I was left wondering: "What is his ace up his sleeve? Why is he not even remotely concerned about ever being arrested for anything"? And while I still think it is very possible he has this ace up his sleeve, I am beginning to wonder if he is actually just insane. For the legally experienced on TL, are there ever specific cases where representing yourself is a good thing? Could he actually be reducing his risk in some way by not having a lawyer? I think he either revels in the thrill of risk/cockiness or is legit insane. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On November 03 2017 06:58 Nevuk wrote: https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/926193101282058240 He doesn't have a lawyer, but he does have "formal and informal advisers", whatever that means. Elizabeth Warren gets memo from Donna Brazile that it's okay to trash Hillary in the context of the DNC now. Perez's DNC official shakeup looks like its going to be a while before they get their act together. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28804 Posts
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