[ale] Off topic - And now, Arizona

[Jim Kinney]

I had to chew on this for a long time.

I don't see much talent in management in most places. The focus is on the
bottom line at the expense of the future. This seems to hold true whether
the management is private-corporate or public entity (i.e. government).

There's nothing wrong with the Social Security which wasn't caused by bad
management. Politicians compromise to get bills passed. That seems to result
in ideas being crippled that could have worked.

I can't make a good car making analogy but imagine a car built by committee
of politicians and not by competent engineers. Now scale that up to the
social-structure checks and balances programs that are the usual recipients
of the slings and arrows of dissent (welfare, public schools,
medicare/medicaid, NASA, all of them).

That same level of mediocrity is also endemic in across all phases of
business.

Can a government program do better than a private sector one? Depends on the
leadership of both. I have a hard time understanding the twisted rational of
how "privatizing" government services benefits anyone but those who favor
privatizing government services. The services have never become better. The
cost has never decreased. The problem has never been solved.

 The motto at GTRI is "Problem Solved". That motto is excellent. The idea is
to do the brain work and devise a solution, implement it, guide it through
fruition and be done. If that motto were adopted universally by governments
and corporations we might begin to see real changes that benefit society
instead of the providers, both public and private organizations.

Every program ever put in place by the politicos was done so because it was
believed at the time to be both needed and a good idea. No one can
intelligently argue against the need for having a healthy, intelligent,
capable population. Yet plenty of people argue vehemently against the
existence of the institutions established to promote those societal goals.

The argument is, in short, "it hasn't worked therefore it never will so why
should I have to pay for it".

Because you can.

Across any grouping of people there is a spectrum of ability. Some people
are very intelligent while others are far less so. Some people are very
physically attractive while others are far less so. Some people can sing
while others are tone deaf.

So do we expect the person with low intelligence to master quantum physics?
No. How about expecting the genius to be content with repetitive tasks? Or
the do we ask the the tone deaf to lead the choir? Or expect the person
maimed in a car wreck to do the things that other, non-maimed people do?

Of course not.

So why do we expect the resources that create out society's safety net to
come from those people with resources? Because that's where the resources
are. those people that have the most resources have clearly derived the most
benefit from the current structure and thus it is only reasonable that they
should be the ones expected to provide the most resources into the system to
keep it going since they have it and they benefit.

But the process is broken. The problem can't even be discussed without the
"it's MY money" being screamed as if that's all that matters.

So people whine about "bloated government" without looking at the cause -
us. The citizens rightly demand accountability for the actions of
government. This requires a layer of people who track and monitor the
directives of the policies for both content compliance and budgetary
compliance. This layer of bureaucracy is costly, non-productive, and seen
mostly as an impediment to efficiency. But it must be there.

Philosophically there are major differences in economic policies. But
economics is far more psychology than science. So far, we are testing
economic theories with no conclusive results. Some policies have the impact
we want while other don't. Our economic policy people are strutted around
like the Emperor With No clothes. And the people who put that policy into
practice can't think on thier own - just look at who Wall Street climbs and
dives on a whim. And since the major tool that Government has to effect
change societally is financial incentives through spending programs and tax
rates, the outcomes of government efforts are becoming largely irrelevant
when the citizens can have their opinions handed to them by a very loud
minority of well-funded pundits. The societal influence of their incorrect
information, misunderstandings, and outright lies spreads rapidly through
our linked media and has almost as much culpability for the simmering mess
we have as the bungling of policy by the elected management we empower to
lead.

In the 70's and 80's during the cold war I can remember being told that "the
other side" would brainwash it's citizens. If a message is repeated "the
desk is white" enough times, eventually people will say the desk is white
even when the desk is brown. We have nearly 10% unemployment. That sounds
scary. We have better than 90% employment. That's great!

And that 90% has the resources to float the 10% until they get back on their
feet. Especially when that employed 90% includes the top 10% of wealth
owners.

And no, that trickle down crap from Reagan didn't work in the 80's. Leaving
money at the top does not allow them "freedom" to invest in job making
business. They just went to Mexico and built factories to cut labor costs.
Then closed those and went to China. Ever wonder why so many Mexicans are
unemployed?

As a former business owner I am keenly aware that in the way things are now,
profit on the last project/sale means a small business can hang on until the
next project pays. That kind of profit is like the storing of food to get
through the winter. It should happen. It's wise and prudent. But for some
reason, it's not wise or prudent to expect Government to do the same. Save a
bit now for when things go to hell. Have a bit of fat, a layer of padding
that can be burned for fast fuel later when things get lean.

But the "it's MY money" crowd now owns the airwaves.

So instead of using the Clinton era economic good times (or the Reagan era
for that matter - as short as they were) to get ahead in Government and do
some of the things you can only do when the harvest is good, the elected
geniuses burned fields (figuratively) and slashed taxes and cut the programs
to the bone. We got a balanced budget (sort of - creative accounting is
always in play) and set the stage for the decline we now have.

So we continue to fight the war on poverty, hunger, drugs, and Iraq,
Afghanistan and a stalemate in Korea, a cold war shift to China, Middle
East, etc.

And those first three will continue forever unless we recognize that there
will always be a certain percentage of citizens that can't do it all on
their own. And that 90% has the resources to help.

And if we don't, we are merely cheapening our humanity to line out personal
pockets.

So when the tax time comes around, smile as you put the stamp on the
envelope no matter whether its a payment or a refund address. Smile because,
unlike private corporations - you can't vote against your boss, you can vote
in the next election and have a say-so in how YOU'RE MONEY is spent.

Thatcher was right. No one accumulates a crap-ton of cash by spending it.
But no one accumulates friends by hoarding resources in a famine either. I'd
rather be dead broke and half-starved and going down with a bunch of friends
than holed up in my cave terrified that "bad people" will take my stuff.
Even the most adversarial economic theories are very clear that cash _flow_
is the most important aspect of resource allocation.

So my closing idea is this: we are in this mess now not because of "credit
default swaps" and other stupid ideas in finance. we are in this mess now
because of Reagan era politics and economics. This complicated so stay
focused here - Prior to Reagan era trickle-down voodoo, rich people _lived_
like rich people. They bought really expensive stuff. That expensive stuff
supported a grand lifestyle for those people who sold them the stuff. They
in turn bought their stuff as high up the chain as they could, etc, etc all
the way down to the K-Mart Blue Light Special crowd living in their trailer
parks. But Reagan ushered in a new era of money - the "self-made bastard".
Most of this crowd got filthy rich on real estate. And they were from a
particular bend of philosophy that revered a semi-spartan living style
coupled with the idea that risk-free investment returns were mandatory. So
the cheap bastards bought hamburger helper meals and shopped the blue light
specials and invested in real estate 'till it popped. since they were not
buying stuff with their money they were not supporting the cash flow
economic system. The credit default swaps are a natural out growth of these
cheap bastards. Their drive for a guaranteed income with no risk is still
the mentality that kept Reagan in office (the second time - first time was
dirty and ugly and makes Bush v Gore look like a temper tantrum).

So with the cheap bastards only spending their trickle-down cash to fund
factories in Mexico then China, South Asia, and Eastern Europe, they have
changed the face of employment from high-school graduate can feed their
family and buy stuff to only college graduates can feed their family and
still buy stuff. And now even that is poised to fade as well. The
Wal-Martization of America is nearly complete. Just as soon as the cheap
bastards finish buying up all the forclosed property at pennies on the
dollar that they sold at inflated prices and fingered the mortgages and sold
the mortgage backed securities to make sure they could only make money and
take no risk. So they get to use bail-out money to buy back the houses they
sold.

Greed is great fun.

Oh. The current "cure" for poverty is military service. Used to be a stint
in uniform meant some discipline and training that could turn into a job
prospect post service. But now, thanks to Reagan era "privatization of
government" policies, expertly advanced by the brilliant economic policies
under Bush Sr, the "moral outrage" congress of Clinton, and W's outstanding
CEO-president leadership, now a military cook costs $125k/year and can't
fire a gun. A truck driver costs $180k and can't fire a gun.

This has totally wasted my morning....

I had to resend this as it was over the size limit for the ALE list. and
totally off topic...

On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 10:54 PM, Greg Clifton <gccfof5 at gmail.com> wrote:


-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
Doing pretty well on all 3 pursuits

  Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by
faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.
    Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith", 1992
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20100711/3b7b8265/attachment.html