61–70 of 96 posts
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> It's a lot higher than other countries. That's because the US also defends the free world. Besides, not spending enough on the military can get very, very expensive.
> That's because the US also defends the free world. The US invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Iraq have sure helped defend the free world. How many trillions went into those combined? Fantastic return per $ of "free world defense".
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Doesn’t this basically mean the money was sloshed around to 401k and pension funds?
That statement trivializes the whole situation. Short answer: no. The government just gave money to every executive in the company, and your argument is that because the company stock is also held by pension funds, they were supporting pension funds? Makes little sense. Just giving the money straight to the pension funds would be much more efficient. This method enriches a bunch of non-contributors along the way.
If you're claiming otherwise, it would be fascinating to see the evidence.
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it’s almost as if they are just lying about the purpose and doing it for some other purpose that it is perfectly effective for
Self-enrichment on the part of government employees?! I am SHOCKED BEYOND ALL BELIEF. /s
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The reason you never hear that is because waste and fraud are very low in reality. That’s why this made the news. It’s uncommon. We should be using the government to help people and when we do, it often does a good job. Examples: Roads, libraries, fire departments, schools, safety regulations…
Fraud might be relatively rare, but we hear about waste constantly and it isn't newsworthy because a high level of waste is expected from a government operation. If it wasn't then there would be good results by putting things under government control, rather than the more realistic outcome of a politically controlled market oscillating erratically between gluts and shortages depending on who won a popularity contest this year.
To be newsworthy political waste generally has to be competitive with wartime levels of destruction. Things like a 2 billion dollars going down the tubes with basically nothing to show for it. Which is similar to the cost/benefit to the US of a day of wild flailing in Iran, US assaults typically run at around a billion dollars per day. If it is less damaging than that then there isn't much point bringing it up because there are bigger fish to fry.
> A new report suggests the state of Michigan is the latest to learn that lesson the hard way. There doesn’t seem to be any lesson-learning happening, since governments keep trying this despite the outcome always being the same.
>There doesn’t seem to be any lesson-learning happening... Which would indicate that creating jobs was not the actual reason for the grants. Given how trivially easy it would be fix the problem (simply make the grant contingent on the creation of jobs, otherwise it converts to a loan), the real purpose is probably a matter of generating headlines and raking in campaign contributions (with occasional full-on kickbacks…
Sounds like a good way to create lots of fake jobs and scammy businesses.
It works in China as there absolute experts Work in government , whereas in Europe government employees are typically not competitive in free market
Grants and tax incentives for non-novel or R&D heavy industry is a terrible investment. Especially since it’s just a competition between states that escalates every year with how lucrative they can make the offering and how little they demand in return.
When Governor Jennifer Granholm was governor a guy approached the state needed investment for a factory in Flint. It would create thousands of jobs. They were delighted because that is something that never happens in Flint. They not only gave him the money but he posed him holding a $9.1 million dollar check with the governor. The picture of the two of them together was in all state media. You know when something sounds too good to be true you might want to do a little checking? When people in Flint saw the picture they informed the state that this guy was a well known conman who had just got out of jail and was living in a trailer. Luckily they were able to recover the money.
https://www.mackinac.org/12345
Another Gov. Granholm story was the time an old line Boston VC firm approached the state for investment. So the state pulled funds out of the employees retirement plan to invest in the next round. The idea was that this would give the state more venture investment. But again no one did any due diligence whatsoever. This firm was not obligated to open an office in the state but only come a couple of times a year looking for investments. They were under no obligation to make any investments in the state and in fact did not. Due diligence would have revealed that the firm offered a very low return on their last several funds. So in the end the employees retirement funds grew more slowly and the state got no venture investments. That venture firm wasn't able to raise another fund and closed.
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> It's a lot higher than other countries. That's because the US also defends the free world. Besides, not spending enough on the military can get very, very expensive.
> That's because the US also defends the free world. The US invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Iraq have sure helped defend the free world. How many trillions went into those combined? Fantastic return per $ of "free world defense".
When I lived in Germany in the 70s, we were driving on the Autobahn one day, and I saw a jet hedgehopping at full blast over the countryside. I asked my dad what was going on, and why didn't the Germans complain about it. (Hedgehopping is how you avoid radar detection.)
He replied that the Germans didn't particularly like it, but they understood the reason for it. We were in Wiesbaden because my dad worked on the US base and their job was to ensure that there wasn't going to be nuclear combat toe to toe with the Russkies.
Later on, we lived near Luke AFB in Arizona, where Luftwaffe pilots were trained. I'd ride my bike out to the flight line and watch those glorious F-104s blast off with their afterburners lit up.
selectively giving away free money to big business is straight corruption. there is no other way to put it. everyone involved should lose re election and get investigated by the financial crimes unit. but i dont think "leave it up to the market" is a better idea. investments like this just need to be transparent, open to everyone and set up strict punishment for stealing the money with prison for executives. if they…
The flawed assumption here is assuming elections are an exception to every other democratic process riddled with corruption and are operated fair and square, in general.