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Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

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Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#101

Post by pjc50 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #17
j_m_b wrote: post #8

“There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can…

It is a funny quote, but obviously not true. Anyone who has worked in, and for, government will tell you that: "And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government." Is 100% incorrect. In fact, much of the bureaucracy we have in government is used for ensuring these types of things don't happen. It's why there are…

Indeed. The government process will often spend $10 to save $1 - because doing otherwise would be condemned as "waste" by the Friedmanites from the sidelines.

Edit: in fact downthread we have someone literally arguing that it would be good to cut the IRS budget despite every $1 cut costing $7 in tax evasion.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#102

Post by nonbel »

whatshisface wrote: post #96
nonbel wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"The sense that government takes our money and gives it to someone else" If something else was going on, then taxes would be voluntary...

An alternative would be a country full of people so similar to you that the average person would feel like their countrymen might as well be them. If the entire US was 100% aligned with your own politics then taxes wouldn't be very burdensome. If my political faction ran the country like a dictatorship, I wouldn't mind them taking my money, because they'd spend it on getting me what I want (which may include "a bette…

>"An alternative would be a country full of people so similar to you that the average person would feel like their countrymen might as well be them."

What? If people really felt that way there would be no need for taxes.

If you have a lack of self-interest (or the sense of "self" is altered to refer to the group) you would freely give money to each other.

The only time taxes are required is when people will not freely give money for a project. That is literally the only reason taxes exist. Nothing is stopping people from donating to the government.

In fact, I was just thinking the other day that 50 million trump voters could donate $100 each to "build the wall" and be done with it. You could probably even donate $25/year for four years. $5 billion is nothing at those scales yet there is all this bickering (supposedly) about it.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#103

Post by Uberphallus »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #14
j_m_b wrote: post #8

“There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can…

This is a good quote and I like it, but it's funny- I feel like what this quote best demonstrates is a basic difference in conscientiousness between the Chicago school folks and the Keynes folks. If I buy a birthday present for someone, I care very much about the content of the present.

It's not about conscientiousness, it's about quality of information.

When you buy something for you, you know your exact needs and how to evaluate compromises. For gifts you care, but not as much since you lack significant information. You get something that is "good enough". For close friends you'll land a great gift in value and cost, but when you don't know the person very much, the gift usually tends to become an Amazon gift card or the like, since any guess may be a poor choice.

For example, many years ago I bought a projector with all the money I had saved (still student, at my parents), and I projected films on the wall, which was suboptimal but I was fine with that. On my birthday my friends got a sliding screen to hang from the ceiling! And I thank them very much for it! But even if they took the measures and all while visiting me, they missed the fact that the ceiling was ultra light drywall, rendering the gift useless.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#104

Post by pjc50 »

exabrial wrote: post #40

Government is nearly always the least effective use of a citizen's money. Huge discussion on HN a few days ago about the IRS barely making $7 for every $1 spent. Before than we discussed the astronomically comical cost of healthcare.gov. It's good that people are demanding social change and action; the answer should bbe private charity and community leadership, as the current system just funnels money into contractor…

> making $7 for every $1 spent

This is tremendously effective and a good argument for spending more on the IRS.

Demanding that border patrol be moved to private charity is an .. entertaining idea. Would be interesting to see people take up a collection for the "wall".

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#105

Post by rchaud »

how_many_times wrote: post #22
robertsd247 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When private sector fails, it goes out of business and other competent businesses take over. When government fails it spends more tax dollars and does the same thing over again, expecting a different result.

>> When private sector fails, it goes out of business and other competent businesses take over. Unless it is a bank, or an important tool for surveillance (e.g. Facebook in 2020). In which case losses are irrelevant and it is ultimately bailed out by the government.

And in reality, there is always an "unless" caveat:

- Farming subsidies - auto bailouts - Bank bailouts - No bid defense contracts

I don't understand why discussions on HN always go back to speaking in terms of economic absolutes. Those do not exist in reality, because the world is made of numerous complex, interdependent relationships between different economic entities.

Economics is not a science in which you can measure out indicators into petri dishes and observe them in a controlled environment. Quoting Milton Friedman like scripture simply belies a glaring misunderstanding of how the world works.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#106

Post by astura »

patricius wrote: post #69
hopefulengineer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. US military is only 16-18% of federal spending. Entitlements like social security, medicaid, and welfare make up 65-70% of federal spending. The majority of military spending is on salaries and benefits anyway, it's essentially a welfare program itself >delivers the least 2. most major advancements in tech and healthcare are due to the military. Silicon Valley was built on military spending. Self driving cars were…

> 2. most major advancements in tech and healthcare are due to the military. Can you back that up? That military spending has been high gives no guarantee that having spent the same money in the private sector wouldn't have led to even better results and advancements.

https://steveblank.com/secret-history/

The military spends on R&D where it makes zero business sense for a for-profit company to spend. Private companies must be profitable.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#107

Post by Tyrek »

zeroname wrote: post #60
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good quote and I like it, but it's funny- I feel like what this quote best demonstrates is a basic difference in conscientiousness between the Chicago school folks and the Keynes folks. If I buy a birthday present for someone, I care very much about the content of the present.

...implying that the Keynesians are really empathetic and that the Chicago school folks are cold-hearted technocrats. That kind of emotionality is what keeps people from making reasonable decisions on economic policy. It would be nice if the kind of naive Keynesianism that politicians love to apply actually worked . It would be nice if you could spend yourself out of a recession. Unfortunately, politicians only like…

Do you mean the Keynesianism that is commonly applied, also known as 'let's increase spending on random shit that will benefit by stakeholders, but will have minimal impact on the overall health of the economy?'. Keynesians haven't been in a position to dictate fiscal policy (as opposed to monetary policy, aka the Fed) for at least the past 3 decades.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#108

Post by gmadsen »

conanbatt wrote: post #85
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good quote and I like it, but it's funny- I feel like what this quote best demonstrates is a basic difference in conscientiousness between the Chicago school folks and the Keynes folks. If I buy a birthday present for someone, I care very much about the content of the present.

The majority of gifts, and thus their aggregate, are worth less than their cost to the receiver. This is because if the receiver can afford it and thought it was good, he would already have it. Because he doesn't, getting it as a gift is worse than getting money. Alternative economic interpretation: if you gave someone the choice between item X and money worth X, the gift is good only if the recipient would choose it…

I think you are missing the sentimental aspect of gift giving. It is not purely price/utility value. Emotions attached to gift giving have value for both the giver and the receiver.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#110

Post by jki275 »

isostatic wrote: post #39
jki275 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Military in the US is 18% of the budget. SS and medicare are something like 70%. If you want to live in a country without a military there are a bunch of them. I wouldn't personally want to live in any of them, but of course everyone is free to do as they see fit.

Iceland has no military spending Ireland spends 0.4% of it's GDP on military Switzerland 0.7% Sweden 1% Finland (who have actually been invaded in living memory) 1.4% The U.S. spent $574b on defence and $79b on veterans last year, both increased way above inflation - total of $57b. Education by comparision dropped by 14%, or $9b. Health by 18% or $15b. The largest slice of the U.S. budget is healthcare (mainly medica…

You get to have that system because the US has taken on the role of global police and funds our military at a level commensurate to that role.

If you funded your military appropriately, we wouldn't have to fund your defense.

Your comment about healthcare is so simplistic it's not even worth a reply, but I'll simply note that the vast majority are not on medicare or medicaid and are covered by private insurance. Your assertion that the system is broken is simplistic and uninformed (ETA, I'm not saying the system isn't broken, there are many issues with healthcare in the US, but "just be like Europe" isn't going to work for so many reasons it's not really feasible to list them here).

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