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Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

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Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#461

Post by jkestner »

psyc wrote: post #367
Alupis wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd actually be surprised if there were many of those. There are entire books written filled with silly, outdated, or absurd laws and regulations (both federal and state). Here's just a taste[1]: > 18 USC §1382 & 32 CFR §636.28(g)(iv) make it a federal crime to ride a moped into Fort Stewart without wearing long trousers. > 16 USC §551 & 36 CFR §261.16(c) make it a crime to wash a fish at a faucet if it's not a fis…

I'm just shaking my head at all the Hacker News armchair law professors who fervently believe each and every one of these is critical to the functioning of civilized society. And that's why we have so much red tape. Apparently there's a type of person who can't abide not having all possible minutia of life legislated.

Shaking my head at nerds who believe that this administration will agree with them on which statutes should be eliminated.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#462

Post by theptip »

> FIRST, propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress.

I've debated this approach with friends in the past. From a game-theory perspective, does this promote or hinder political corruption?

I'm inclined to believe that term limits would actually encourage corruption.

1) If senators have to find a job after 8 years, surely that encourages the revolving door between industry and government, as they need to find another job .

2) If excellent and popular politicians have to be replaced before they fall from popularity, and it still costs a lot of money to get elected, then candidates will become more beholden to special interests (as they can't campaign on their track record or political capital). This would also dilute the overall quality of legislators.

3) If the average candidate has little or no political record, then how can we root out those who are beholden to special interests? At least currently we can look at who they have taken money from over the years in the public records that are available. If every candidate is a blank slate, who hasn't been subjected to oversight, it will be much easier for a candidate to be secretly bought without the public having a chance to spot it.

The real problem is not that there exists career politicians, it's that they experience extreme conflicts of interest due to being permitted to engage in insider trading [1], that they are not restricted from taking jobs in the industries they regulated while in government [2], and that there is a massive flow of money into politician's campaigns from special interests [3].

A more credible solution to these problems is advanced by Represent.us: http://anticorruptionact.org/whats-in-the-act/

[1]: https://theintercept.com/2015/05/07/congress-argues-cant-inv... [2]: https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/ [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#463

Post by cabinguy »

Nadya wrote: post #280
deadringerr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He had an entire TV show about firing people. He appears to prefer to destroy rather than create.

Absolutely terrible example. The TV show created many jobs (producers, editors, filmers, the 'assistant' (spokesperson...) position being fought for) and those who were "fired" (never really hired to begin with, were they?) failed to meet the job requirement. Which was to be the best business-person. A meritocracy, as things should be, rather than being based on race/gender/filling some sort of diversity quota. In re…

He didn't create or own the show. He was an employee.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#464

Post by Nadya »

pvelagal wrote: post #336
Nadya wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely terrible example. The TV show created many jobs (producers, editors, filmers, the 'assistant' (spokesperson...) position being fought for) and those who were "fired" (never really hired to begin with, were they?) failed to meet the job requirement. Which was to be the best business-person. A meritocracy, as things should be, rather than being based on race/gender/filling some sort of diversity quota. In re…

"A meritocracy, as things should be, rather than being based on race/gender/filling some sort of diversity quota".. wonder when AI beats humans at chess and go, where does meritocracy stand ? Are Japanese/european cars better than US' ? Is protectionism, which rust belt states voted for, bad ? Looks like at the end of the day, people matter and there should be a place for educated and un/undereducated.

>Looks like at the end of the day, people matter and there should be a place for educated and un/undereducated.

So what makes a white or asian person the "better choice" than the black or latino person? Why should their race be a deciding factor in whether or not they are hired for a position? Education opens opportunities - especially in knowledge-based fields.

I'll take a strong, uneducated worker for a manual labor job over an intelligent toothpick because the stronger worker will be better for the job.

At the end of the day, why should [x] be chosen over [y] if [x] is better suited for the job? Is [x] not a person? Does [x] not matter? The only reason to select [y] is to pay a lower wage, they are easier to take advantage of, racism, or sexism.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#466

Post by Johnny555 »

manicdee wrote: post #369
arcticfox wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a little harsh. There's no first principle that the average citizen should know that says "clean coal" isn't possible. In fact, in 5-10 minutes of specifically looking at the topic I still don't see why you're mocking the concept.

Simple thermodynamics. We get energy from coal by burning it then extracting some of the heat. The waste products are basically carbon dioxide and heat. Clean coal is about capturing that carbon dioxide, which means spending energy to separate the CO2 from other gasses, then liquefy it. This sequestration process costs about 30% of the energy originally extracted from the coal. I fully support clean coal since it inc…

While capturing and liquifying the CO2 may prevent immediate release into the atmosphere, you still have to do something with it. Where would you sequester a billion gallons of liquified CO2 each year?

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#467

Post by CalChris »

arcticfox wrote: post #353
stcredzero wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the term "clean coal" can be bandied about with a straight face says something about the state of science education of the general public. (Pretty much the same knowledge needed to instantly realize that various wind/solar operated water-from-air devices and Solar Freakin Roadways aren't viable from back of the envelope calcs.)

I think that's a little harsh. There's no first principle that the average citizen should know that says "clean coal" isn't possible. In fact, in 5-10 minutes of specifically looking at the topic I still don't see why you're mocking the concept.

In addition to burning it cleanly, coal itself is not clean. You have to extract it and you have to transport it.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#468

Post by monknomo »

hanginghyena wrote: post #164
monknomo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're fucked. They likely won't lose their jobs, but they won't be able to expand or replace attrition. We've seen this movie before, during the downturn, and evidence points to 4 years (or more) of this crap. Trump has expressed a preference for private industry to do things for the government, because they do it better. Accenture, Deloitte and KPMG are prolly the federal IT of the future

That's not awful, btw. The one upside of a large consulting firm is you can retain decent talent for boring projects by bouncing them around between assignments.... but you still have a single entity to hold accountable afterwards. Plus a certain percentage of these people take the diverse base of experience and go start something useful. Teaching a bunch of smart, ambitious people about how the process actually work…

The trouble is that the government systems that are created are typically something only the government can/wants to do. Like "a system for issuing a permit" or "a system for quantifying the impact of permits issued". I think there is a more limited chance at job creation than you might think.

Also, in practice, contractors build a thing as fast as they can, then leave and never come back. Agencies that lean heavily on contractors generally don't have a deep bench of technical talent, so they get stuck with a maintenance nightmare that they didn't build and have a hard time understanding.

My feeling is that contractors tend to build differently than people who will have to support the system for however long the law it is enacting exists...

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#469

Post by Taek »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #43

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

That was one of the hardest things about this election. I really like some of Trump's policies and promises.

And some of them are frightening. Frightening enough to make me want to steer clear, but the DNC did not put forward a candidate that made me feel any better. Calling for a Manhattan project to defeat encryption? Yikes.

America lost this election long before November, I'm sure of that.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#470

Post by seibelj »

ben174 wrote: post #177
cesarbs wrote: post #95

A lot of what's in there seems pretty reasonable, but: 1) The whole border wall thing is just ridiculous. I thought he had given up on that. Why would Mexico have to pay for that? If the US wants to build a wall, fine, build it and pay for it. It doesn't make sense to demand that Mexico pay for it. It's like building a wall on your property and demanding your neighbors pay for it. 2) The FDA thing is scary. Regulatio…

You can find more detail on how he plans to make Mexico pay for the wall here: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf Specifically, he will threaten to disallow wire transfer of money from US to Mexico by non-citizens. Since that is a revenue source they greatly depend on, he suggests they'd rather fund the building of the wall. If they agree to fund the wall, then the ban on transfers will go away.

I do not support building a wall, nor building a wall and getting Mexico to pay for it. However, if I was trying to get Mexico to pay for the wall, gosh darn it this document explains coherently how to do it! You can't deny that the administration is goal-oriented.
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