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Why Governments Fail

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Re: Why Governments Fail

#121

Post by User23 »

naravara wrote: post #119
User23 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s more strong evidence that the system really doesn’t work as advertised. If it did then the people that supposedly have the power of the purse and control trillions of dollars in spending might vote themselves enough budget to do their jobs.

They might, but a significant chunk of that body (and of the electorate) is philosophically opposed to the idea of them doing their jobs. Also fundraising, public communications, and case-work are all bigger determinants of them getting reelected than legislative acumen or policy-making skill so big surprise what kinds of people the job selects for.

Why do the people who control an organization that can vote trillions of dollars a year into existence need to fundraise?

Philosophically opposed, whatever that means, is an obvious fig leaf. The system observably can’t actually be functioning as advertised. Whatever the conditions of the actual operationally descriptive system are, they select for people who vote as they’re told in exchange for a minuscule fraction of the loot.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#122

Post by dane-pgp »

gtyras2mrs wrote: post #115
dane-pgp wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but wonder how the American political system would look if an amendment passed which gave the individual states the ability to decide for themselves: 1. What constitutes a well regulated militia 2. Whether certain drugs should be legal to consume 3. At what stage of development human life begins Moreover, I can't help wondering how popular such an amendment would be with voters, and with the two main par…

From a US perspective, how would you deal with interstate commerce? Would the federal government be able to interfere as a result? Would companies State A (where drugs are legal) be able to trade freely with citizens in State B (where drugs are illegal) without an inspection at the border? Would citizens from State B (where guns are legal) be able to travel freely to State A (where they are heavily restricted) withou…

My understanding is that US states aren't able to pass extraterritorial laws or claim personal jurisdiction based on someone being normally resident within their state. That should prevent states from punishing residents for travelling to carry out acts which are legal at their destination.

Similarly it should be implicit from the existence and intent of the amendment that the Interstate Commerce Clause doesn't allow the federal government to render it null and void. I think it is a common legal principle that earlier, more general laws are overridden by later, more specific laws.

Finally, I don't think there is anything unique about this hypothetical amendment from the perspective of wealth inequality. There are plenty of things that wealthier people are able to take advantage of, including travelling to countries where the drinking age is lower, for example.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#123

Post by missedthecue »

jrwoodruff wrote: post #41
varispeed wrote: post #14

The problem is that nobody cares about corruption, or the so-called "lobbying". Big companies get their way at the expense of regular citizens meanwhile police and other agencies are busy enforcing big pharma monopoly on drugs. Most governments run until they are exposed and people are mad enough to march on the streets, or they simply run out of "their" monopoly money. To improve that we need a ruthless agency that…

>a ruthless agency that will remove corruption from politics once and for all. Used to be called a free press, until we allowed massive mergers creating single companies with control of a massive media market share, and journalism trade unions to be eliminated, leaving journalists no choice but to cover what they're told.

Media has perhaps the most competing firms of any nationwide industry. I don't understand this take, and I see it a lot. There are probably 20 relatively trustworthy outlets through which you can consume US news.

That is a lot. Look at the competitive landscape in other industries. There are basically 4 tire companies, 4 or 5 home builders, 6 or so mobile handset manufacturers, 4 or 5 US based airlines... You get the picture. And all of those industries are still decently competitive.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#124

Post by dane-pgp »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #67
dane-pgp wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but wonder how the American political system would look if an amendment passed which gave the individual states the ability to decide for themselves: 1. What constitutes a well regulated militia 2. Whether certain drugs should be legal to consume 3. At what stage of development human life begins Moreover, I can't help wondering how popular such an amendment would be with voters, and with the two main par…

You'd have drug and gun smuggling between states, and abortion tourism between states.

So in practice there'd be little difference between what people do now and what they would do if this amendment was accepted.

What would change, however, is the temperature of debates about federal politics, and it would become harder for the two main parties to distinguish themselves and divide the population.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#125

Post by the_benno »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #118
the_benno wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'm a little less convinced of the 1st bullet point. In particular, I see many obstacles to a "free society in which everyone gets to pursue a dignified life": healthcare costs, ongoing climate disaster, erosion of labor rights, rising nativism and authoritarianism on the far-right, etc. chief among them. To be as monomaniacally focused on "cancel culture" as Mounk (and many others on the center/right of…

Listen to the podcast and read some more articles on Persuasion. Mounk is not "monomaniacally focused on cancel culture". He's monomaniacally focused on defending liberalism from populism - there's a lot on his podcast about nativism, authoritarianism and the populist right (the whole damn podcast started as a way to explore how the populism of Trump, Orban etc can be defeated in the realm of ideas). And generally, I…

Thanks, I'll dig in some more. Perhaps I'm unfairly projecting onto Mounk and conflating his work with that of other "intellectual dark web" types and their fakakta cancel-culture takes. I haven't followed him closely since the flurry of discussion/debate when the project launched last summer.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#126

Post by varispeed »

jrwoodruff wrote: post #41
varispeed wrote: post #14

The problem is that nobody cares about corruption, or the so-called "lobbying". Big companies get their way at the expense of regular citizens meanwhile police and other agencies are busy enforcing big pharma monopoly on drugs. Most governments run until they are exposed and people are mad enough to march on the streets, or they simply run out of "their" monopoly money. To improve that we need a ruthless agency that…

>a ruthless agency that will remove corruption from politics once and for all. Used to be called a free press, until we allowed massive mergers creating single companies with control of a massive media market share, and journalism trade unions to be eliminated, leaving journalists no choice but to cover what they're told.

In places where press is licensed, it is not free - because they must report in a certain way to not lose license - it also includes being nice for whomever is currently on top. I've seen here in the UK where Russia Today reported a story that should have collapsed the government, but none of the other main stream media investigated the story until few months later where the party has concocted a plausible explanation why something happened. Between that RT was given a warning that they'll lose license for interference in UK affairs... Madness.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#127

Post by AnimalMuppet »

varispeed wrote: post #126
jrwoodruff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a ruthless agency that will remove corruption from politics once and for all. Used to be called a free press, until we allowed massive mergers creating single companies with control of a massive media market share, and journalism trade unions to be eliminated, leaving journalists no choice but to cover what they're told.

In places where press is licensed, it is not free - because they must report in a certain way to not lose license - it also includes being nice for whomever is currently on top. I've seen here in the UK where Russia Today reported a story that should have collapsed the government, but none of the other main stream media investigated the story until few months later where the party has concocted a plausible explanatio…

The press requires a license in the UK? Foreign press? Really?

(American here, so I don't know. But the idea seems insane to me.)

Re: Why Governments Fail

#128

Post by lazide »

giantg2 wrote: post #107
lazide wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did some digging (not the parent poster) - here seems to be a decently thorough meta analysis of IFR and CFR from the swine flu outbreak. It appears to be clearly and dramatically less lethal to all age ranges than COVID [ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3809029/#!po=0.... ], with the highest risk group (>64 yrs old), having a roughly 1% chance of death per symptomatic case, and children (lowest risk)…

So comparing young and middle aged (based on watwut's comment) it seems the IFR was 1% for swine flu and 1% (overall according to Fauci) for covid. Granted seasonal flu is about .1% (overall). So it seems like it could be similar for watwut's stated age groups, with some strains of flu being higher and most (likely) being lower. The real issues/ discrepancy emerge with the elderly. I do see the wild differences in th…

I don’t think so? It was 1% CFR for the absolute highest risk group in swine flu.

Population wide, across all risk groups (including very low risk), it appears IFR (a typically lower end number anyway) for COVID is .9-1.5%.

Which is anywhere from 50-100x higher in real crude fatalities, if I’m squinting correctly.

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