
Amazon wants Trump to testify in battle over $10B Pentagon contract - DyslexicAtheist
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/10/tech/amazon-trump-defense-contract/index.html
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bediger4000
This actually seems very fair. We have an adversarial legal system: checks and
balances in it are based on people zealously defending their rights and
privileges. Trump has at least given the appearance of anti-Bezos bias in his
tweets about the Washington Post. If a President, any president, wants to
appear to favor (or disfavor) some entity, that president needs to be able to
at least articulate what they were thinking at the time of the announcement of
favoritism (or disfavoritism). Otherwise the USA will end up with a
merchantilist system, which is inefficient economically.

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Supermancho
> Otherwise the USA will end up with a merchantilist system, which is
> inefficient economically.

At the largest level, organizationally, it's rare (to put it mildly) for a
corporation or government to be economically efficient. Mercantilism is what
the US has had for over 100 years via the Fed. This doesn't mean that the
entire US system is managed that way, nor will it be.

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bediger4000
So we should write off possibly blatant high-level interference in DoD
acquisitions because our firms are already inefficient and we have de facto
mercantilism already? Great. I'm all in. When do we publicly acknowledge that
mercantilism? The first consequence of acknowledging mercantilism is that
middle school economics learning changes to reflect that, so the voting public
isn't deluded about monopolies, why large corporations are large, and why we
buy from corporations with our tax money.

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Supermancho
> So we should write off possibly blatant high-level interference in DoD
> acquisitions because our firms are already inefficient and we have de facto
> mercantilism already?

Claiming that there is an upcoming decision (or crisis) point when the status
quo is being observed, comes off as sensationalist. It's misguided concern.

> When do we publicly acknowledge that mercantilism?

The context is already embedded in history. The internal (very public)
challenges to the Fed have led to some scary outcomes. Putting the conspiracy
talk aside, it's not like there aren't jokes in the media (from movies like
Spies Like Us to Men In Black) acknowledging the known waste -
[https://www.city-journal.org/html/americas-missing-
money-157...](https://www.city-journal.org/html/americas-missing-
money-15725.html)

Not sure what more can be done. It's like the marijuana ban or racism. It will
take a few generations to sort it out or it will never be sorted fully. Either
way, awareness is not the problem.

