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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

#61

Post by kaitai »

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 very elegant, and encapsulates the problem with America. Well, many other countries as well, but certainly us, America. Not government -- but our conception of "ourselves".

HN occasionally has articles about education and the comparison of, say, Finnish education and American education comes up. I am firmly of the opinions that Finnish education works, when it works, because it is a service that the population is providing for themselves via government. It is seen as spending their own money on themselves. These other social services are seen similarly: people are getting what they paid for. And they (Finns, in this example) are conscious of it: in large part, I lay this lingering national consciousness of the value of government at the Karelian refugee resettlement of the 1940s. My inner armchair historian/anthropologist sees this massive national effort from family level through the top of government as providing a bit of national glue that also led to feelings of agency and efficacy among the population.

The sense that government takes our money and gives it to someone else, or steals it, pervades the US discourse. Our efforts are focused on avoiding taxes, lessening taxes, eliminating services for those undeserving others. We don't want to pay for other peoples' kids; they shouldn't have had them and haven't they heard of birth control, which they should also be able to obtain on their own. Personal responsibility is king. It subtly pervades even how we teach reading -- if you read [1], you see that teachers were taught that kids learn from their parents reading to them, and it's also just a matter of parenting choices and personal responsibility. From the family to top levels of government in the US, there's now an anti-glue, the story that government is an adversary, that it's a wasteful theft of honest peoples' money.

They are both just stories that make themselves true through our behavior, the behavior of government officials, citizens, and contractors.

[1] https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/hard-words-why-a...

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

#63

Post by patricius »

texmex20 wrote: post #54
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…

I like this quote ... and agree with the spirit of it. That said, some central governing body does need to make sure certain needs of the community are taken care of. That way, we ensure that the whole community is taken care of and we're not in an every man for himself scenario where the "strong" prevail and the "weak" die off. When the government provides military to protect it's citizens, it does so for all citize…

Can we really say that government changes this? The powerful in this case is government itself and lobbyists. They are taken care of. We do not ensure in general that the weak are taken care of.

Furthermore, government uses the military for anything else than the protection of its citizens. How many of US military campaigns are for protection and how many is to support the military industrial complex?

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

#64

Post by _dark_matter_ »

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…

> Government is nearly always the least effective use of a citizen's money

These kinds of broad, factless statements do not deserve to be on HN.

> Huge discussion on HN a few days ago about the IRS barely making $7 for every $1 spent

Are you suggesting that the totality of taxes we pay to the IRS are only 1/7 of the IRS cost? What are we... paying for roads with? The military? Is the entire government going down in flames solely because of the IRS?

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

#65

Post by golergka »

atmosx wrote: post #45
golergka wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There hasn't been a world war for two thirds of a century now, and US and their trade partners enjoy safe trade routes. I wouldn't call it "not delivering".

The mess the US foreign policy of the previous administration caused in Middle East alone ( not counting Ukraine and Libya ) has an immense cost and no real benefit. Of course others are left alone to pay the bill. I would call that a total failure by any possible interpretation.

You can only call that a total failure if you ignore the entirety of human history and compare it to some fantasy of world peace instead. It's good to thrive for a better world, and notice when things go worse, but when evaluating effectiveness of american military as a whole, you should compare it to a time before Pax Americana.

Also, did I understand you correctly: you not only want to cut american military spending, but also keep US morally responsible for situation in Ukraine?... Now, both these viewpoints are to some extent reasonable, if they come from corresponding first principles. But I can't possibly imagine how the same person can hold these two views at the same time: they completely contradict each other. Either US is responsible for events across the globe, OR it shouldn't have a huge military - how on Earth can you believe both?!

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

#66

Post by leejoramo »

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 goes along with another current top story on HN.

I wonder whose money Verizon spent to purchase Yahoo.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18662822

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

#67

Post by hopefulengineer »

atmosx wrote: post #45
golergka wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There hasn't been a world war for two thirds of a century now, and US and their trade partners enjoy safe trade routes. I wouldn't call it "not delivering".

The mess the US foreign policy of the previous administration caused in Middle East alone ( not counting Ukraine and Libya ) has an immense cost and no real benefit. Of course others are left alone to pay the bill. I would call that a total failure by any possible interpretation.

What is the US supposed to do? You literally cited two cases, Ukraine and Libya, which are polar opposites. Ukraine the US is criticized for NOT intervening, middle east and Libya US is criticized FOR intervening.

And now we have Myanmar muslim situation and Yemen where people are begging for US intervention, but in all probability if we intervened we would be getting criticized for it by the same people asking us to intervene in a few years

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

#68

Post by tboyd47 »

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…

Why would private charities be any less corrupt than public ones?

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

#69

Post by patricius »

hopefulengineer wrote: post #48
adwhit wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sold, let’s get rid of the part of the government that costs the most and delivers the least. I’m talking about the military, of course.

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.

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

#70

Post by eastWestMath »

arcbyte wrote: post #42
enraged_camel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's a great generality, but it's not only 100% correct , your example of bureaucracy PROVES it is correct. Those committees, reviews, and approval chains are just distributed responsibility mechanisms to remove the responsibility to think critically about the entire expenditure, which is Friedman's point. 10 people thinking about narrow, nonoverlapping aspects of a large thing will never be as effective as less peop…

Just because more than one person/group of people looks at something does not mean they are all looking at non-overlapping aspects of a large thing.
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