Damn it another trick ad

[boomzilla]

@flabdablet said:

@boomzilla said:

If the government weren't so excited to get in bed with industry, then industry would focus on its job instead of lobbying the government for favors. And if the government doesn't have the power to grant favors to begin with, it's not a problem.

What if the job the industry feels like doing involves ripping out forests where people live, or damming up and/or polluting waterways they rely on for drinking and farming? I really don't understand this rosy-hued vision of corporate benificence.

Yes, what if they do? The first question would be, who owns the land? If the company does, then why are people living there in the first place? If someone else does, then how is the company able to do this? Are you imagining some sort of anarchy or something?

@flabdablet said:

It seems to me that abuse of power flows naturally from acquisition of power, which flows naturally from command over resources. I see nothing inherent in private enterprise that acts to dampen the tendency to acquire and abuse power; quite the opposite, in fact, because large corporations answer to the interest of a relatively small group of shareholders who are often quite under-informed about what the corp they nominally control is actually up to.

The thing that dampens their abuse of power is that if they do things that are inefficient or against their customers, they will ultimately lose out and go away. This is obviously complicated by things like natural monopolies and so forth (and apply this to the rest of what I say), but for most things, the power of competition and substitution and innovation in general is very powerful. Unless the firm has the power to coerce people to buy their product or prevent new entrants.

@flabdablet said:

Governments, on the other hand, are accountable to the citizenry at large.

In theory, this is true. In reality, most people have a lot less knowledge about what a large government does than the previously mentioned share holders. Also, you have to account for the fact that government tends to leverage the power of a great benefit to a small group along with very small costs to a large group. Individually, these things are pretty insignificant, but they build up.

@flabdablet said:

The most instantly obvious example I can think of is the performance of the Victorian State Electricity Commission

This is the sort of natural monopoly I was thinking about for which it is more difficult to rely on "normal" market forces than for things like, say, food or gasoline.

@flabdablet said:

But in any case, I don't know that it's terribly useful to argue about whether government or private enterprise is inherently less efficient and/or more evil in the absence of collusion, because once entities reach a certain size there is always going to be collusion.

I agree, but I'm reminded of something that Chief Justice (of the US Supreme Court) Roberts said, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." Similarly, I have a difficult time understanding why people think that the solution to collusion between two parties is to give one of the parties to collusion more power instead of less.

[flabdablet]

@boomzilla said:

The first question would be, who owns the land? If the company does, then why are people living there in the first place? If someone else does, then how is the company able to do this?

Here's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about.

@boomzilla said:

Similarly, I have a difficult time understanding why people think that the solution to collusion between two parties is to give one of the parties to collusion more power instead of less.

Power is a relative thing. If you remove some power from one of two parties, that automatically gives the other one more, and vice versa.

Be that as it may, I don't think governments do need more power; I think they have enough to be going on with. What I would like to see is for them to look after the natural monopolies instead of breaking up and flogging off taxpayer-funded assets to their corporate manager mates at bargain basement prices.

Case in point: the national broadband network. The previous Labor Government started this, recognising that although it would in fact pay for itself at or above the bond yield rate while providing a huge public benefit, its rate of return on the ~$50B investment required made it a non-starter for the private sector. The Lib/Nat coalition has been opposed to it from day 1, mostly because it is a large debt-funded investment and because of lobbying from the existing telcos and ISPs. The Murdoch press has done a solid job of getting the great unwashed to believe the huge lie that a fibre-to-the-premises network will be obsolete before it's fully rolled out because Technology. Abbott hasn't a clue, and the slightly cheaper fibre-to-the-node alternative he's promised instead really will be obsolete before completion. I am unspeakably pissed off about this.

In Australia, the push for privatisation has always come from the party that's just assumed power. Labor picked it up and ran with it, largely because the Murdoch press has done such a good job of demonising the very notion of government debt and because the Labor Party, like the Coalition, is now largely composed of managerialists; most of the old-school labour movement types are long gone.

[flabdablet]

@boomzilla said:

I'm reminded of something that Chief Justice (of the US Supreme Court) Roberts said, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

That's presumably supposed to be an argument against affirmative action. I don't think it's psychologically, politically or practically sound. Very truthy, though.

Seems to me that the way to stop discrimination against members of recognisable minorities, if all you have available for the job is public policy, is to create public policy that encourages that kind of discrimination to be seen as abnormal by most people. Culture is a supertanker that doesn't steer real quick, so if you're running it and you think it's heading the wrong way, you generally have to overcorrect to get it to turn. Once it has, you can stop.

If affirmative action does what it's supposed to do, it will make itself unnecessary within another couple of generations. Even until then, I think it causes less suffering than it prevents.

[boomzilla]

@flabdablet said:

@boomzilla said:

The first question would be, who owns the land? If the company does, then why are people living there in the first place? If someone else does, then how is the company able to do this?

Here's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about.

I don't know enough about Papua New Guinea to say much intelligent about it, except that it certainly wouldn't be on my list of places that had stuff like rule of law. Though it seems like through lawsuits the perpetrators are getting punished. I'm sure the residents would have preferred it all never happened, of course. In any case, it appears that the government OK'd their not repairing the dam, so I'm not sure how you aim to spin this as making governmental oversight look good.

@flabdablet said:

What I would like to see is for them to look after the natural monopolies instead of breaking up and flogging off taxpayer-funded assets to their corporate manager mates at bargain basement prices.

I guess. I hear this sort of complaint a lot from people who support parties that are quite favorable to increasing the size and power of governments, and there are often compelling stories. But it's honestly way down on the list of things I worry about. Maybe it's just not as much of a problem in my neck of the woods. And if the government stuck to looking after natural monopolies instead of so much other stuff, I'd have a lot less to complain about.

@flabdablet said:

Case in point: the national broadband network.

I can see how this could be a reasonable thing for the Australian government to do. After all, we have similar population / territory issues in the US. I've always supposed that it's become overblown as a political hot potato and a differentiator. Of course, if the Labor guys hadn't wasted money setting people's houses on fire, there'd be less room to criticize NBN on a cost basis. The Liberals are way too pink for my tastes, but that seems to be the norm in most countries.

[boomzilla]

@flabdablet said:

@boomzilla said:

I'm reminded of something that Chief Justice (of the US Supreme Court) Roberts said, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

That's presumably supposed to be an argument against affirmative action. I don't think it's psychologically, politically or practically sound. Very truthy, though.

Yes, that was the context. Of course I think your analysis of it is completely wrong.

@flabdablet said:

Seems to me that the way to stop discrimination against members of recognisable minorities, if all you have available for the job is public policy, is to create public policy that encourages that kind of discrimination to be seen as abnormal by most people.

I agree. One can also possibly punish this behavior. This has been done and I would say has generally been successful. We're never going to cure racism from the human species, but 2013 is very different from 1964.

@flabdablet said:

If affirmative action does what it's supposed to do, it will make itself unnecessary within another couple of generations. Even until then, I think it causes less suffering than it prevents.

Well, here we are, a couple of generations in. A lot of people talk about how violence only begets violence. To a certain extent, this is correct. We can all think of a lot of places where there has been a multi-century cycle of violence. But I would say that there are two ways to get it to stop. Both involve breaking the cycle, either by surrendering / forgiving / stopping or by a complete defeat of one's enemy. Affirmative action does neither, and actively hurts the very people it is supposed to help.

[flabdablet]

@boomzilla said:

I'm not sure how you aim to spin this as making governmental oversight look good.

The point I was trying to illustrate is that there's a typical example of a huge corporation putting its own interests ahead of those of everybody else who lives near its operations. And if you can't see that BHP bullied the PNG government into letting it get away with completely inadequate reparations, you're more naive than I've been giving you credit for.

...

@boomzilla said:

it's honestly way down on the list of things I worry about. Maybe it's just not as much of a problem in my neck of the woods. And if the government stuck to looking after natural monopolies instead of so much other stuff, I'd have a lot less to complain about.

Don't let your own police-state experience sour you on governments generally, is my best advice. They can work, but only if people do get off their arses and hold them accountable. Murdoch (piss be upon him) is of course working to make that as unlikely as possible; the News empire is another excellent example of a huge out-of-control corporation working directly against the interests of the general public.

In my opinion, the US government was set up to fail (largely because the people who designed it didn't trust themselves to do the job properly) but even so it could have worked better than it does now had it managed to avoid being hollowed out by the ultra-rich. I don't think the US's problem is government size; I think it's government quality. The era of the lesser Shrub was a total disaster for you guys, and you still haven't really recovered from any of the shit that he and Cheney and Rumsfeld and the rest of his corrupt corporate mates heaped on the ordinary working American.

[flabdablet]

@boomzilla said:

We're never going to cure racism from the human species, but 2013 is very different from 1964.

Cure, no. Marginalising it to a similar extent to belief in the appropriateness of slavery ought to be do-able. And yes, I've seen a lot of improvement over my 51 years. I'd still like to see a hell of a lot more.

@boomzilla said:

Affirmative action does neither, and actively hurts the very people it is supposed to help.

Since neither of us (nor Roberts, come to that) is one of those people, this is really not our call.

[boomzilla]

@flabdablet said:

@boomzilla said:

I'm not sure how you aim to spin this as making governmental oversight look good.

The point I was trying to illustrate is that there's a typical example of a huge corporation putting its own interests ahead of those of everybody else who lives near its operations. And if you can't see that BHP bullied the PNG government into letting it get away with completely inadequate reparations, you're more naive than I've been giving you credit for.

I assume that every entity will act in its self interest when it is able to do so. I'm still not seeing your argument in this example regarding my points. I admit to not knowing a lot, but I'd assume that it was more about bribery and corruption than bullying.

@flabdablet said:

Don't let your own police-state experience sour you on governments generally, is my best advice.

Why not? What's to like or trust? What have any of them done to deserve it?

@flabdablet said:

They can work, but only if people do get off their arses and hold them accountable. Murdoch (piss be upon him) is of course working to make that as unlikely as possible; the News empire is another excellent example of a huge out-of-control corporation working directly against the interests of the general public.

I don't understand this at all. Murdoch owned outlets have, in the last few years, been the most active in holding government account (in both our countries). I would have pointed to stuff like the recent Finklestein review (whatever its formal name is).

@flabdablet said:

In my opinion, the US government was set up to fail (largely because the people who designed it didn't trust themselves to do the job properly) but even so it could have worked better than it does now had it managed to avoid being hollowed out by the ultra-rich. I don't think the US's problem is government size; I think it's government quality. The era of the lesser Shrub was a total disaster for you guys, and you still haven't really recovered from any of the shit that he and Cheney and Rumsfeld and the rest of his corrupt corporate mates heaped on the ordinary working American.

Of course, quantity has a quality all its own. And the quality of our government has certainly been better in the past. But it's been a lot worse (e.g., .Wilson, FDR). This is the nature of people. And the efforts of people have almost entirely overcome the bullwarks that have restrained the government. The problem is less that it's been "hollowed out by the ultra-rich" and more that it has taken on a life of its own. Also, the problem is that we have a government that isn't hollow. It is far too substantial.

That said, Bush did give us some truly awful stuff: Medicare Part D and Sarbanes-Oxley come instantly to mind. And instead of fixing this stuff, we're piling on: Obamacare, Frank-Dodd. They also improved on a failed gun sting that the Bush ATF failed to pull off by simply handing guns over without the overhead of trying to keep tabs on them, so I guess maybe we have gotten more efficient in some ways. Nowadays, Congress critters don't even bother to read the stuff they vote on. But this is OK, because the Executive just ignores them when it pleases him.

It makes me want to cry when I read the Declaration of Independence.

[boomzilla]

@flabdablet said:

@boomzilla said:

Affirmative action does neither, and actively hurts the very people it is supposed to help.

Since neither of us (nor Roberts, come to that) is one of those people, this is really not our call.

This is a real load of bullshit. You might as well say that since neither of us have been enslaved, we can't judge slavery. And you can't say that the people of PNG were harmed by that mine. You can try to argue that the policy isn't doing more harm than good, but if you say that I can't make an argument that it is, you're just trying to shut down dissent.

[flabdablet]

@boomzilla said:

Of course, if the Labor guys hadn't wasted money setting people's houses on fire, there'd be less room to criticize NBN on a cost basis.

I take it you're referring to the Home Insulation Program, or as Rupert (piss be upon him) and his Tory mates would prefer we remembered it, the Pink Batts Disaster. Managing to spin inadequate training and supervision by private contractors as Government recklessness, thereby diverting the public's attention both from the economic stimulus provided by that program and the tremendous amount of energy and household money it has saved and will continue to save, has been a bit of a News Limited masterstroke.

[flabdablet]

@boomzilla said:

You might as well say that since neither of us have been enslaved, we can't judge slavery.

I wouldn't say that. I would say that since neither of us have experienced enslavement, we're not well placed to make authoritative statements on the level of ongoing need for explicitly anti-slavery policy.

@boomzilla said:

You can try to argue that the policy isn't doing more harm than good, but if you say that I can't make an argument that it is, you're just trying to shut down dissent.

I'm not trying to shut down dissent. Dissent as much as you like. Just don't expect me to give anywhere near as much weight to your opinion, or mine, or that of Justice Roberts, as to that of members of the minorities affirmative action is supposed to be helping.

[boomzilla]

@flabdablet said:

Managing to spin inadequate training and supervision by private contractors as Government recklessness...

Circumstances of the deaths

Mr Fuller, a 25 year old qualified electrician...

Mr Sweeney, a 22 year old experienced insulation installer...

Mr Barnes, a 16 year old apprentice carpenter,

Mr Wilson, aged 19, died of complications related to hyperthermia...Despite some training at TAFE in installing insulation

WTF. I guess your houses, like your animals are just more deadly than the rest of the world. At least you have a scapegoat, though.

[boomzilla]

@flabdablet said:

@boomzilla said:

You might as well say that since neither of us have been enslaved, we can't judge slavery.

I wouldn't say that. I would say that since neither of us have experienced enslavement, we're not well placed to make authoritative statements on the level of ongoing need for explicitly anti-slavery policy.

Really? Like, maybe a little slavery is OK? I'm pretty comfortable in issuing an authoritative statement that slavery is not OK, and also satisfied that it's been codified in our Constitution. I don't ever foresee a need to repeal any anti-slavery laws that we currently have. These laws are good and a correct application of government force. I don't know enough about Australian law to know where it stands on slavery.

@flabdablet said:

@boomzilla said:

You can try to argue that the policy isn't doing more harm than good, but if you say that I can't make an argument that it is, you're just trying to shut down dissent.

I'm not trying to shut down dissent. Dissent as much as you like. Just don't expect me to give anywhere near as much weight to your opinion, or mine, or that of Justice Roberts, as to that of members of the minorities affirmative action is supposed to be helping.

Except that's not what you were saying. As a citizen of a democratic republic, it certainly is my duty to judge things like that. You are, of course, free to disregard any and all argument. I mean, literally it isn't my call, but it explicitly is Justice Roberts' call (that's the main point of his job).

If we're talking about a decision in some random person's life, then I agree that it's probably not my call. But we're talking about public policy. What happened to the government being accountable to the people? Then...who decides who is allowed to be able to make a call? While you might not have meant to stifle dissent, that sure is how that sort of language comes across. In addition to issues regarding race, I most often hear this with respect to abortion ("You're a man, so you're not allowed to have an opinion...unless you agree with me!") I'm amused that a banner ad for a product is more offensive to you than this sort of influence.

[flabdablet]

@boomzilla said:

I assume that every entity will act in its self interest when it is able to do so.

People are entities, and we act both in self-interest and in the interests of other people we love and/or care about. Corporations tend not to give a fuck about anybody other than their own shareholders. They will give as much lip service to giving a fuck about their customers as is necessary to stop their competitors looking unacceptably good. They give zero fucks about non-shareholder non-customers who get hurt by their activities, except insofar as those people can raise enough of a stink to cost them money. The more powerful the entity, the wider becomes the gulf of fuck.

@boomzilla said:

@flabdablet said:

Don't let your own police-state experience sour you on governments generally, is my best advice.

Why not? What's to like or trust? What have any of them done to deserve it?

I think governments that uphold the rule of law more often than not, and make law and public policy that benefit the public more often than not, deserve credit for that. I think that Australian governments have done good work on the whole. I think the fact that I am able to sit here contentedly typing away to you, rather than worry about some heavily armed cunt taking it into his head to rampage through my village and set fire to my family, is a good thing and I give our government a large degree of credit for that. I don't think Americans or Egyptians or Syrians are inherently stupider or crazier than Australians, and I think the fact that I live in a more peaceful nation than America or Egypt or Syria is largely down to the way this country is organised and run. If we had Syria's system of government, or Egypt's, or even yours, I don't think my life would be as good as it is.

Which is not to say I give up the right to have a bloody good whinge when they do things I think are knuckle-draggingly stupid.

@boomzilla said:

I don't understand this at all. Murdoch owned outlets have, in the last few years, been the most active in holding government account (in both our countries).

The Murdoch press does not hold governments to account, in the sense of keeping the public aware of the extent to which governments are or are not serving the public interest. The Murdoch press shamelessly spins every report it publishes in such a way as to garner public support for policy aligned with News Limited's own interests and to cast scorn on any idea that might disturb Rupert's (piss be upon him) comfortable status quo.

The fact that the US no longer has an influential news outfit with anything like the integrity and impartiality of Australia's taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation or commercial Fairfax press is a genuine tragedy; you folks are so used to being spoon-fed shit and calling it news that you've completely forgotten what competent mainstream media look like.

@boomzilla said:

It makes me want to cry when I read the Declaration of Independence.

See, we have the opposite thing going on here. We have a completely fucked-in-the-head Constitution that we largely ignore (it's boring as batshit where it isn't batshit insane) in favour of a bunch of rusted-on convention we inherited from the Brits. Those conventions had been shaped over hundreds of years of Parliamentary government before we got them, and they pretty much work. They actually work better here than in Britain because we don't have a fucked-in-the-head House of Lords to go with our fucked-in-the-head Constitution. We kept the fucked-in-the-head Royal Family to do all the fucked-in-the-head ceremonial stuff, so there isn't such a pressing need for fucked-in-the-head ceremonial crap like beauty pageants to replace it (I think it's vital to keep all the look-at-me look-at-me functions of government in the hands of crazy people who make no sense, which is why I support the monarchy).

Your lot were so shit-scared of the idea that a working government might stop them doing exactly as they pleased that they threw the convention baby out with the monarchist bathwater and came up with what remains one of the finest examples of spin doctoring the world has ever seen. The Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution following on from it, are amazing. They're inspirational, they're uplifting, the language is gorgeous, the sentiment is unimpeachably noble. The reason you want to cry when you read the Declaration is because making the American breast swell is what that document is for.

But anybody who looks at those documents and says "yes! this is what people are like!" is not a member of the reality-based community. Your Constitution is a work of literary art, and your Government is fucked up beyond all recognition. Our Constitution is a plodding shameful piece of shit, and our Government is by and large functional. I don't think that's purely coincidence; I think America started from a place of believing its own bullshit, and as every contributor to this forum well knows, that never ends well.

[boomzilla]

@flabdablet said:

I think governments that uphold the rule of law more often than not, and make law and public policy that benefit the public more often than not, deserve credit for that.

I agree with that, and from an historical perspective, both of our governments are outstanding. But that doesn't mean we should trust them on past performance.

@flabdablet said:

The Murdoch press does not hold governments to account, in the sense of keeping the public aware of the extent to which governments are or are not serving the public interest. The Murdoch press shamelessly spins every report it publishes in such a way as to garner public support for policy aligned with News Limited's own interests and to cast scorn on any idea that might disturb Rupert's (piss be upon him) comfortable status quo.

This sounds like typical partisan spin. I don't know as much about Murdoch stuff in Australia, but here we have Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, both of which have their own spin (again, like everyone), but that's not to say that they don't hold a government to account. I get it that your idea of "government that works" is very active and energetic government. But then, a press outlet that didn't approach that with skepticism (at a minimum) and outright distrust or hostility is a press outlet not holding the government to account. The vitriol against Murdoch is really pretty hilarious.

@flabdablet said:

Your lot were so shit-scared of the idea that a working government might stop them doing exactly as they pleased that they threw the convention baby out with the monarchist bathwater and came up with what remains one of the finest examples of spin doctoring the world has ever seen.

LOL. It's funny because you obviously don't know what you're talking about. Even if we excuse your crazy ideas about the proper role of government, to say that the Constitution hasn't prevented abuses is just flaunting your ignorance. Which is sorta OK, you being a foreigner and all.

@flabdablet said:

The reason you want to cry when you read the Declaration is because making the American breast swell is what that document is for.

Huh? No. It's because the case against George sounds like it's talking about the current government.

@flabdablet said:

But anybody who looks at those documents and says "yes! this is what people are like!" is not a member of the reality-based community.

This is overly vague. Can you be more specific? The basic idea was that you shouldn't let any part of the government get too powerful. They set up the various parts so that they would work to keep the others from growing too powerful. Likewise, the states would do this against each other and the Feds. I thought you understood this principle and agreed with it, or maybe you were insincere when you said, "The more powerful the entity, the wider becomes the gulf of fuck."

@flabdablet said:

Your Constitution is a work of literary art, and your Government is fucked up beyond all recognition. Our Constitution is a plodding shameful piece of shit, and our Government is by and large functional.

I agree that our Government is fucked up, largely because it's been working really hard to ignore the Constitution. The biggest is how the legislature delegating law making to the executive. I think the direct election of Senators was a mistake, though it might not make so much difference with today's communication technology, where people are able to unite in common cause across large distances. Still, keeping the states more involved and interested in what the Feds do could only be a good thing. But then, other things have improved since the beginning (e.g., amendments on slavery and voting rights). There are some interesting proposals to course correct, though I'm pretty doubtful of being able to get it done.

@flabdablet said:

I don't think that's purely coincidence; I think America started from a place of believing its own bullshit, and as every contributor to this forum well knows, that never ends well.

You're certainly welcome to that opinion, but I think it betrays a large ignorance of our history. Though given your outlook on life and liberty, it might not matter.