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California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

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Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#221

Post by FooHentai »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #147
Kapura wrote: post #123

It feels like I live in a country where every level of government is unbelievably corrupt, but also completely unfixable. How are you supposed to address the sorts of issues that lose $200,000,000 of state money if the people who try to do so get fired? I don't see a way out of this mess, and it makes me want to move somewhere... better.

I very much feel the same way. Unfortunately it is not easy to move to another country long term and work there. Also obviously every other country also has its own issues, many that one likely wouldnt discover until after making a move.

You will also hit the travellers paradox - the more places you visit the less any on place will satisfy you to settle down as you have more alternatives against which to compare the good and bad of a place.

Any location is a compromise, it's about weighing what's most important to you. After a decade in new Zealand I see it's problems very clearly as compared to the uk and while I've witnessed my birth country melt down spectacularly over the last few years, I can also see that my home country has a bleak future without a significant change of course.

If anyone reading this does move to a new country please take on just one piece of wisdom from me when you do so: Do NOT establish a friend group in your new country that consists primarily of other expats. You'll get stuck in an echo chamber where comparisons between places are always de jour. This should be recognized as toxic. To properly settle into a new place conversation is best done inside your own head with yourself or (sparingly) with your partner. Being careful about this can make all the difference between successfully integration and, well, other less desirable outcomes.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#222

Post by 29athrowaway »

nickpp wrote: post #99
29athrowaway wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, fine. Let's remove all forms of regulation, shall we? Someone joins your company and starts leaking all your intellectual property. It is all good, though, because legislation related to that doesn't exist. A developer joins your company, and shortly after uploads your entire code base to github. That's OK due to lack of legislation saying otherwise. A sysadmin changes all the passwords and asks you for a ransom…

I believe you are confused. Nobody is disputing the rule of law (and especially contract law) and the role of government in upholding it. What you are describing is pretty much anarchy and nobody is arguing for that.

Likewise, I am not advocating for excessive regulation that fosters corruption. I am advocating for common sense.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#223

Post by boomboomsubban »

dragonwriter wrote: post #134
dgoldstein0 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California does have some less-common voting systems in play - on my San Francisco ballots, the two interesting things I've seen: - IRV is commonly used for local positions - Other positions seem to use a system where all the political parties have the same primary, and then only the top two candidates are on the ballot for the general election. Wikipedia describes it well: > Under California's non-partisan blanket p…

> Every senate election I can recall in California has been Democrat v Democrat by the general election. So, you have a very short memory? The nonpartisan blanket primary was adopted in 2010, so no elections prior to that were Democrat-Democrat; 2012 also wasn't. 2016 and 2018 were.

Answering for them, but I assumed they had moved to California in the last ~8 years.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#224

Post by ashtonkem »

zepto wrote: post #208
robocat wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is there is no better. Ouch: “America is #1” is such an insidious belief system. Have you really opened your eyes to how some countries have much, much better governing systems? Many Scandinavian countries have a higher population than most US states, yet somehow they seem to function better in so many dimensions. I am from New Zealand and the worst interaction I have had with a government department fo…

“I have travelled the world, and you can cherry-pick areas where the US is resoundingly better than NZ” The entirety of NZ has a population comparable to the size of a large metro area in the US. It seems like the cherry picking is being done by you. It’s completely meaningless to compare it to the US as if it were similar. If you compare the US to Europe as a whole , you’ll find just as many problems, and the compar…

It's not clear why the size of the area should matter much to the individual. If you feel like you live in a corrupt state, then "but it's very big you see" will do absolutely nothing to reduce the negative experience.

And if one felt like they should leave their current country and move somewhere less corrupt, then size doesn't really matter either. If the hypothesis is "living in the US is unpleasant due to corruption" then "but is small" is a bizarre non-sequitur.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#225

Post by 29athrowaway »

zo1 wrote: post #146
29athrowaway wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, fine. Let's remove all forms of regulation, shall we? Someone joins your company and starts leaking all your intellectual property. It is all good, though, because legislation related to that doesn't exist. A developer joins your company, and shortly after uploads your entire code base to github. That's OK due to lack of legislation saying otherwise. A sysadmin changes all the passwords and asks you for a ransom…

As a thought experiment: How would you solve those problems with your hands tied behind your back (i.e. you don't have a government to rely on)? Just try one - assume you're in a fictional universe and writing a novel or something. Anywho, the problem with this trail of discussion is that you can come up with an infinite amount of "problems" and libertarians can likewise come up with a "solution" to each one. However…

Let's entertain this idea...

Without a monopoly of violence, you have 3 alternatives:

a) Multiple entities keeping each other in check, in perpetual competition...

b) One faction becomes more powerful than the rest and eventually assimilates the rest or turn them into vassals.

c) Factions decide to ally up and either assimilate the rest and make vassals out of them.

Basically, smaller fish gets eaten by larger fish. The world is just like a large prison where you have to either become a large entity or belong to a large alliance otherwise you're fucked.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#226

Post by robocat »

zepto wrote: post #218
robocat wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My original point is “The problem is there is no better” is a defeatist attitude: there is a lot better. Every other country in the world manages to model their own policies by using other countries of smaller or larger size, that have wildly different societies and governance. Each state government in the United States holds legal and administrative jurisdiction within its bounds, yet somehow US states are special,…

“The problem is there is no better” is a defeatist attitude: there is a lot better . Not really for a 350m region. You don’t need to go outside the US to be able to contrast two different regions of 5 million people. Showing that some administrative groups of 5 million have better outcomes than others does nothing to explain how to run a state of 350m in a better way. You have offered us nothing of explanatory value,…

I wasn’t clear about an underlying assumption: I thought it was obvious the topic is corruption at the state level, and my arguments revolve around whether the state of California can do better... I am not arguing anything about the USA as a whole.

California could compare itself with other countries and improve some of its governance. I believe that a major roadblock to that path is the ambiance of American excellence, that blinkers the sight of citizens to solutions found in other parts of the world.

Individually, there are many citizens with a suitable social wealth that could choose to have a demonstrable effect upon the governance of their state.

Keep an open mind, try to avoid memes of mindless arguments, make an effort to improve your own governance, and if all else fails if you are technically wealthy you could always move to a country that has better social wealth.

California is the largest state on many important metrics, so usually it is comparing against other states that are much smaller on those metrics. I believe the size of New Zealand is not a reason to ridicule any comparison (zepto’s original answer “argued” that the size of NZ matters, which I feel is an evasion).

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#227

Post by zepto »

robocat wrote: post #226
zepto wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The problem is there is no better” is a defeatist attitude: there is a lot better . Not really for a 350m region. You don’t need to go outside the US to be able to contrast two different regions of 5 million people. Showing that some administrative groups of 5 million have better outcomes than others does nothing to explain how to run a state of 350m in a better way. You have offered us nothing of explanatory value,…

I wasn’t clear about an underlying assumption: I thought it was obvious the topic is corruption at the state level, and my arguments revolve around whether the state of California can do better... I am not arguing anything about the USA as a whole. California could compare itself with other countries and improve some of its governance. I believe that a major roadblock to that path is the ambiance of American excellen…

California isn’t an independent country, so it can’t just adopt arbitrary solutions from other countries.

Even if it could, there is an assumption you are making that you can identify what ‘solutions’ led to particular results and can simply adopt them.

That certainly doesn’t seem to be a valid assumption about how governance works globally.

Also ‘California’ isn’t a person. ‘It’ can’t compare itself to anything.

Individual Californians can make whatever comparisons they like, and so can politicans and other leaders.

Do you have something to offer about what they might want to look at that would help them?

Do you even have an understanding of the problems? It seems like not everyone would agree on what they are.

Otherwise it just seems like your position is essentially just a claim that because there is another country that you think is run better, there are some ideas that you don’t actually understand yourself, that could help.

Edit: you added a paragraph to your comment after I posted my reply.

Please don’t do this as it can look like you are trying to change the context of the reply, which would be a dishonest move.

You added > I believe the size of New Zealand is not a reason to ridicule any comparison (zepto’s original answer “argued” that the size of NZ matters, which I feel is an evasion)

You say you ‘feel’ it’s an ‘evasion’ which is a way of dismissing this comment without addressing it.

If you think the comparison is valid then why not tell us what could California or the US adopt from NZ that would make things better?

If you don’t know, then what’s the point of the comparison, other than a kind of vague nationalism?

Edit 2: oh - I see you have changed a whole bunch of things about your earlier comments to make it look as though you made points that I failed to respond to.

You are completely intellectually dishonest and as such have nothing to offer to political discourse about corruption.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#228

Post by zepto »

ashtonkem wrote: post #224
zepto wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I have travelled the world, and you can cherry-pick areas where the US is resoundingly better than NZ” The entirety of NZ has a population comparable to the size of a large metro area in the US. It seems like the cherry picking is being done by you. It’s completely meaningless to compare it to the US as if it were similar. If you compare the US to Europe as a whole , you’ll find just as many problems, and the compar…

It's not clear why the size of the area should matter much to the individual. If you feel like you live in a corrupt state, then "but it's very big you see" will do absolutely nothing to reduce the negative experience. And if one felt like they should leave their current country and move somewhere less corrupt, then size doesn't really matter either. If the hypothesis is "living in the US is unpleasant due to corrupt…

I’m not commenting on leaving.

I’m commenting on the idea that the US could just copy ideas from other arbitrarily selected states, or that the cause of those states present condition is well understood.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#229

Post by zepto »

ashtonkem wrote: post #220
prewett wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you really opened your eyes to how some countries have much, much better governing systems? Many Scandinavian countries have a higher population than most US states, yet somehow they seem to function better in so many dimensions. So if you're comparing a government the size of a US state to the US federal government, and saying the states do better, yeah, sure, but it's not a fair comparison. You can find US s…

I think you have missed the point. GP’s argument wasn’t that the Scandinavian model is better, they were instead forcefully rejecting the idea that everyone is as bad or worse than America. It is very common for liberals to point at Scandinavia as the ideal model, but that is not core at all to their argument. Furthermore, while you might have a point about the geographic size of the US, as an individual it’s not cle…

GP said: “Have you really opened your eyes to how some countries have much, much better governing systems?”

You said: “GP’s argument wasn’t that the Scandinavian model is better”

Are you trying to gaslight the parent?

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#230

Post by ashkankiani »

gumby wrote: post #201
ashkankiani wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're fluent in reading and speaking Japanese, don't move here. It's a nightmare. Pick a country where you know the language. And consider renouncing your citizenship to avoid taxes if you have the prospect of attaining new citizenship.

> And consider renouncing your citizenship to avoid taxes if you have the prospect of attaining new citizenship. There are few countries where the taxes are lower than the US Federal ones. Thus though you will have to file a tax return, in most cases you won't owe any additional taxes. What makes the US more expensive is all the non-tax fees that are included in those foreign countries' taxes (e.g. medical costs). So…

A US citizen not living in the US still has to consider US taxes for income not generated in the US. US expats have a worse system to deal with if they don't intent to be US permanent citizens anymore than with most countries. So your perspective is the exact opposite of what my comment was discussing, actually.

But I will say that the part about the actual cost of living being more deceptive than the taxes you pay is definitely true.

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