
Selflessness vs Selfishness - peter123
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/01/selflessness-vs.html
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gibsonf1
_"And we know that congress is susceptible to being lobbied successfully by
people, institutions, cities, states, and corporations. So I'm quite worried
that this $550bn is not going to get spent in the right ways because it's seen
as a big pot of money to get your hands on."_

There is no historical precedent that I know of for government ever
redistributing large amounts of money in a way that was good for the economy.
The "New Deal" helped extend the Great Depression for 10 years rather than a
shorter term if the govenment had not taken such a heavy handed approach.

The idea that a few in government can actually accurately determine the needs
of a vast quantity of people economically makes no sense. We're talking about
trillions of transactions. Central control was tried by the Russian Soviets,
and it failed miserably. Japan recently suffered a decade of decline after
their attempt at a "New Deal" infrastructure spending plan. Why are not more
people complaining about the foolishness of trying this again given the track
record of abject failure in the past?

~~~
nostrademons
WW2. Nearly all the prosperity of the last 60 years can be traced back to
innovations done because of the war. You have: computers, encryption,
microwaves, radar, jetplanes, sonar, foreign oil sources, rockets, synthetic
rubber, silly putty, many plastics, nuclear power, and widespread use of
penicillin. In many of these cases, the technology existed before the war but
was not cost-effective or reliable enough for general use. The war spurred
development on these fronts enough that it opened vast new consumer markets
after the war.

The irony is that the government was not trying to help the economy with WW2
spending. It was try to blow shit up, and avoid getting blown up. It just so
happened that many of the innovations that were good for blowing people up
were also very good at improving their quality of life later. So once we were
done killing people, we had 60-80 years of prosperity.

We just need another genocidal maniac, and a few tens of millions of people to
die. Then it'll be all better.

(Irony aside, a similar effect happened after the civil war: many innovations
like railroads, oil refining, trench warfare, steam engines, steel-hulled
ships, etc. were commercialised because of the war, and then led to 60-80
years of prosperity afterwards.)

~~~
newt0311
Another big change: FDR stopped villifying and prosecuting business. If one
studies investor surveys, the change in attitude and the corresponding
measures of investor confidence are clear. That probably did at least as much
if not more to bring the economy out of depression. The government may be big
but it cannot match the spending power of several hundred million people.

~~~
gaius
Well it can, but it can't match the collective intelligence of them, and
that's what ultimately matters. It's not how much you spend, it what you spend
it on.

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mhb
Yeah. Democracy. It sucks. It is worth considering Lessig's approach to
changing Congress as a way to mitigate some of these problems:

<http://change-congress.org/>

Lots of worthwhile and related stuff on his blog:
<http://www.lessig.org/blog/>

~~~
jhancock
I would like to see lessig produce a wish list of hacker projects he needs
done. I would sign up.

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jwb119
I think its misguided to say that greed got us into the current economic mess
and that selflessness is the solution. It's a nice happy theory but it flies
in the face of almost everything that we know about human nature.

The real interesting question is how we can tweak our economic system to
better manage greed.

~~~
mike_organon
This article is advocating a economic plan made possible by taking money from
people, and worrying the plan will fail because people will want to improve
their own lives instead of further sacrificing their lives for the sake of the
country.

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johnrob
Sifting out the right/wrong places to spend government money is not the
responsibility of those asking for it. It's the government's job.

The problem is not vendors, it's the lobbying system.

~~~
mike_organon
The problem is that the government even has the ability to take our money and
spend it as they wish. We need seperation of economy and state, for the same
reasons we seperate church and state.

~~~
eru
Or we should at least separate goals from implementation. I.e. use democratic
processes to agree on specific goals and how much resources to devote to these
goals. Like 'Reduce unemployment to at most 5%' using no more than 10^10 $. Or
'Raise the literacy rate of people over 10 years to at least 99% in our
nation.' for at most 5*10^9 $.

Then the government puts the allocated funds into escrow and auctions off
zero-coupon bonds that pay off when the goal has been reached. Of course the
bond holders will do what they can to achieve the goal. Or do something that
makes the goal easier to reach, thus the price of the bonds rises and the
original holder can sell them at a profit.

(The above is a description of Social Policy Bonds.)

~~~
mike_organon
I disagree. That's just allowing people to vote other people's money away. The
point of having _rights_ is that my property is mine and the majority can't
vote it away. In your system, where does it end? The US is a republic (nation
of laws), not a democracy (nation of people) - democracy is a good mechanism
for electing the government and, hopefully, keeping is relatively clean.

The bonds you describe may be a smart improvement to less-controlled taxation,
but it's still having the state control the economy. Using the analogy to the
church, that's like not outlawing other religions or atheism, but using state
funds for one religion of preference - that's still a lot of control and
weight the government shouldn't have.

I think of it this way: the government has the guns (and rightfully so), so
everything they do is ultimately by force. Therefore, we need to severly limit
what they can do, leaving the rest of us with freedom.

~~~
eru
My proposal was meant as a practical interim step. Selecting ends
democratically works better than selecting means. While people can agree in a
democratic fashion that certain goals shall be reached, the market fares
better at choosing the method to execute.

In the longer run though, I would like to fund public goods using dominant
assurance contracts
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contracts#Variants>). They solve the
free rider problem of voluntary funding. And they allow private provision of
public goods --- for profit.
(<http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/PrivateProvision.pdf>)

Of course, dominant assurance contracts and social policy bonds complement
each other.

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jhancock
Is money inefficiently spent domestically (next 4-8 years) better than money
spent inefficiently internationally (last 8 years)?? I think so.

~~~
newt0311
Ummm... you do realize the public spending on international projects is
miniscule, ~5% at most. If you want to attack spending, go after SS, medicare,
and medicade. These programs just by themselves eat up ~50% of the US federal
budget and more on the state level. If you are talking about military spending
overseas, then note the fact that just medicaid uses up as much money _every
year_ as the war in Iraq has used up in its entire duration.

~~~
jules
That 50% is a big number. The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport & the
Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment in the Netherlands spend 13.8% +
23.9% = 37.7% of the federal budget. Maybe SS+medicare+medicaid is more than
the 37.7%, but I think that social services and healthcare is more extensive
in the Netherlands than in the US. Why is there such a big difference in
spending?

~~~
newt0311
Government rationing. Difference in population. Differnce in perfornamce: If
you want a hip-replacement, in the US, you can scheule the surgery on the same
day, in the UK, you need to wait at least a week. The Chances of surviving
cancer in the US are drastically higher than in the US. Most drug research is
carried out here in the US. Our medical system may be expensive but by some
counts, its worth it.

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aswanson
It's good to see someone who has seen as much of the business world and
thereby human nature as Fred still maintain a sense of idealism and duty to do
the right thing. Unfortunately, most people are not like him and the pigs will
be lining up at the trough for their cut. It sucks but that is the world we
live in.

------
known
How To Build a Successful Nation?

We need both Socialism and Capitalism to build and sustain a great nation.

(1) Prevent race to the bottom aka Socialism

Affirmative Action, Subsidy, Basic Income Guarantee, Stock Options to prevent
Wage Slavery, Free Public Transportation, etc

(2) Promote race to the top aka Capitalism

Incentives,Free Markets,Extrinsic motivation,Appreciation,Awards, Rewards etc

~~~
eru
Incidentially basic income guarantee has some libertarian arguments on its
side.

