@jt

I think the quote "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" is a better description.

The US governmental system is tragically dysfunctional and without a mechanism to change it.

I imagine the next few years the federal government is going to spend like crazy. The one misguided party will push for unfunded tax cuts and the other misguided party will push for unfunded social spending.

They will compromise and we will get BOTH!

In a few years, the US economy and government debt will finally hit that last point, where some sort chain reaction credit meltdown occurs over the course of 90 days or so ... and no one will be willing to lend the US government money.

What will happen at that point remains a mystery, but if somewhat like Greece there will be protests of some sort against who knows what.

But then, like now --- nobody is actually running the show. 

It seems more likely that the State is trying to take power, albeit incompetently. What do you think regulation is? The State decides that x industry isn't running their business the way the State wants it to be run, and passes legislation to force them to run it the way the State see's fit. Taxes are nothing more than theft. 

It would have to be incompetence.

The reason is ... the current state of affairs cannot last much longer (a few years at best). When government credit runs dry, the next stage is "printing money" (yes this will happen, it actually started last year when the Federal Reserve pulled $1 trillion out of thin air to buy securities to stabilize the market --- peeving China a bit).

That will kill corporate investment and the collapse of the economic system ensues.

Any system that's actions lead to the demise of the system by definition must be incompetent.

I'm just saying that if it is deliberate then the goal is self-defeating and shortsighted.

Taxes are nothing more than theft

Not really. Government isn't bad, they provide the public resources and the public goods to support the best interests of citizens (safe water, safe food supply).

But the US government suffers from a massive inefficiency of scale. The sheer size is absolutely unmanageable and gets a low return on investment. It could be several times more efficient, but the structure of the government and the administrative overhead of that structure was not designed to support the massive size of the federal government.

And our political system -- as you implied with your book reference -- is a duopoly not designed to allow any self-correcting behavior.

Governments in Europe are far smaller in comparison, more able to change, managed far better and closer to the citizens. 

When America collapses, will any of you Euro peoples let me room with you? 

The fed has been printing money since the U.S. went off the gold standard, in the 70's. That's nothing new.

Taxes have to be theft. I, and many other people, did not consent to give the United States gov't money from my paycheck, plus the plethora of other places the State dips it's greedy hands into. There's nothing that a government can provide that private business couldn't. 

We can go on a big pub crawl :) 

As much as I understand your anger and support your course - or rather WL's - would you please stop hammering Mastercard and Paypal so I can complete my Steam purchase? For I also see a point in the notion that these rage attacks may well prove counterproductive on the underlying debate in the long run. 

Or redirect the ddos attacks at Steam, because they're cleary incapable of making their paypal option work flawlessly. 

Attacking Paypal, Amazon because they stopped/closed WL related services is dumb. They stopped because of threats from the gov't. ddos defense.gov or something. 

negke wants it and he wants it now! Just get to a store and buy the game there? Has the added benefit of less DRM. So you could probably play it even if Steam itself was denialing its service to you.

jt_, you are kinda dumb. 

 

There's nothing that a government can provide that private business couldn't.

That's not really true. Private business has the need to make a profit. The government is about providing public services.

Roads, vaccinations, power plants, space programs, police, the legal system, libraries ... many of these things have no direct approach for a profit angle so no private business would ever have incentive to provide them.

You are correct in the sense that most of these things could be contracted or outsourced to private business and get far more bang for the buck. The US government is grossly wasteful.

One reason the United States is, in the short term, a lost cause is due to isolation.

In Europe, people get to see the way that other governments do things all the time.

In the United States, ignorance rules and the "way things are" is an institution.

To save the United States political system, you'd have to break the country into 8-15 pieces to get it functional again.

In the USA, people are numbed into thinking that the one party and that the other party have all the 2 points of the same view that are possible. It is reinforced in all news media.

And both parties are so very wrong, it is like watching 2 drunk people argue and issue without understanding both of them are absolutely wrong.

For instance, one party is "for" big government and the other party is "against" it. What about the idea of an efficient government?

And in the quest to fix the economy, they argue tax policy or monetary policy. But the real issue is no corporation has any interest in building factories in the US due to red tape, our legal system which fleeces large employers -- and since we have free trade with other countries .. no corporation needs to build anything here.

Taxes are theft

Money is an imaginary currency. So how can it be theft when it doesn't really exist to begin with?

Putting that aside, there is a lot of truth that the government is super-tax hungry because it is totally out of control. Rather than do an actual tax increase, they add backdoor fees to everything from phone service, car rentals, airlines increasing the cost of everything.

Taxes in some sense are a necessary evil. Yes people could survive without a government ... just look at Somalia ... 

But they also waste a lot of money.

How about this for a question - is it worth putting troops in Afghanistan? I mean that costs a lot of money. Put it also provides a lot of employment for starters..... If fuels the economy because its a collaboration of the usages of an awful lot of government and charitable services.

Do we have the right to pass judgement on the enemy there? Possibly - as a collective, western governments are playing god with it. We are a united front and military superpower, and we can judge you on our moral standards because no-one's gonna stop us.

How does a nation fight a war in the 21st century? With our wallets. Our Value Added Tax on purchased items (almost everything we buy in he shops or on-line or from public services) here in the UK is about to go from 17.5% to 20%. Our governments will mess around doing this and that, rebuilding roads, putting people in prison, paying doctors huge sums of money to do their jobs etc., and they will spend a shed-load on the military.

What would happen if they didn't do that?

There would be less employment for starters. Our government would probably give the unemployed load of money so that they can still spend and keep the economy rolling.

I wonder if less people would get killed by terrorists? Or more? 

I highly recommend http://jontaplin.com/the-cost-of-empire/

As for number of people killed by "terrorists": Wikipedia says that about 10,000 people are killed by lightning strikes per year. Something makes me feel that this is higher than the number of people killed by terrorist attacks as portrayed in the western media. 

.. number of the people that die in car accident.. :P

I propose the US Army to bomb all car manufacturers as they are killing more people (even indirectely) than terrorits :D 

Money is an imaginary currency. So how can it be theft when it doesn't really exist to begin with?

The gov't's money is imaginary, that's why it's called fiat money. Real money can be anything, gold, silver, chickens, camels, cows, &c. Money is just a means of exchange between people. So you're half way right, sort of.

Roads, vaccinations, power plants, space programs, police, the legal system, libraries ... many of these things have no direct approach for a profit angle so no private business would ever have incentive to provide them.

Roads, vaccinations, power plants, space programs, police, the legal system and libraries do all have profit incentive. Fairly obvious profit incentives, in fact. 

So then, how do you measure the profit of a library? There are things that private businesses cannot provide as well as the state can. Baker has listed lots of examples. Here's an example: say there is a small town that has access to public transportation services. This may not be profitable for the service provider. Does that mean that the town ppl should be cut off from those services? I think not, so this is an argument against privatisation of public transp. services. Sometimes, the many have to take care of the needd of the few. This would nor happen if profit is the only driving force. 

That implies that people have a ``right'' to use buses. Bus transportation is a service, not a right. 

I posted that while I was pretty drunk last night. Just ignore it. I don't want to discuss this with you. It's a waste of time. 

What makes Western civilization the best isn't fat cats in mansions.

It is that the common man/woman has roads, vaccinations, public schools, libraries, clean water, safe food, access to phones, electric, power and sewage.

With those, you can rise as far as your work ethic and -- reality is --- gene pool will take you.

In third world countries, you don't have most of those things. And you might not have a chance to use whatever talents you have.

The wealth of the United States and of Europe isn't "capitalism" -- it is that everyone gets the closest thing you can have to a "fair chance" at being all you can be.

Contrast with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, China, Russia and any number of truly third world countries.

Capitalism is important, it is the natural vehicle of necessary competition. But the investment of a small portion of that to draw the "floor" level of a country is what makes Western civilization different.

The United States has a dysfunctional federal government. That doesn't make all government bad. Even in the US, local governments are typically very kickass and responsive to the citizens and their needs. It is our federal government that do things like the TSA airport security screenings of grandmas and 4 year old little kids. 

And I would like to say that I dont necessarily agree with him, but:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article681768.ece 

With those, you can rise as far as your work ethic and -- reality is --- gene pool will take you.

The wealth of the United States and of Europe isn't "capitalism" -- it is that everyone gets the closest thing you can have to a "fair chance" at being all you can be.

It might be the closest available today but definitely not the closest to "fair chance" available. There are still many inequalities that have nothing to do with your work ethic or gene pool. 

Bear, as you know the average lifespan in the West is 70 years. If you throw out the top 3% of good luck stories and the bottom 3% of hard luck stories, the average person has quite a long time to pursue their interests, happiness, talents etc.

Someone might start out with disadvantages but in most cases there are several chances to overcome them. Likewise, many people who start out with a lot of advantages have plenty of opportunity to fritter them away [Hey, I used fritter in a sentence].

Is the glass half empty or half full?

I'd argue that the answer to that question means everything in the world.

If the glass is half empty, someone thinks they don't have a chance and will never try, which is a forfeiture scenario.

If the glass is half full, you may suffer setbacks or several, but you will keep at it and given enough time find what you hope for. 

Someone talks about opportunities, good or bad luck, disadvantages, and so on, I always think about Kinn's post, below, which was awesome enough that I saved it, and added it to the "quotes" section on my website:

Consider this - unless you believe in reincarnation, then just consider the unlikeliness of your position - over all time and space, consider all the possible sentient beings that have ever lived, are currently living, and will ever live. It's a large number. You're one of them.

What the christ are the chances that out of all the times and places that you could have been born in, you happen to be living in one where you can sleep at night without fear of being eaten by a monster; you know exactly when and where your next meal is coming from (and have the luxury of being able to pick and choose about it). If you're ill, or injured you can be healed by technology, and what's more there's a good chance all your children are going to survive you.

For most of us, our biggest worry is what danger-free occupation we're going to concern ourselves with for one-third of each day (well, for 5 out of 7 days at least). The rest of the time we are either sleeping or entertaining ourselves with sex, drugs, or the latest toy.

We are privileged bastards.
-Kinn

Yeah, this isn't very political. Sorry. A little. I guess. 

Baker: are you arguing that there isn't any work to be done except changing perspective for those that aren't optimists?

And what's your criteria for a third world countries your list makes me wonder.