4 ms·

Can you explain why £12,757 is bad? It's an arbitrary figure and other than "it's big" I have no context for whether or not it's "the right" amount, and certain

Can you explain why £12,757 is bad? It's an arbitrary figure and other than "it's big" I have no context for whether or not it's "the right" amount, and certainly would not use it as a point as to whether or not "governments are terrible" is correct. Let's say I got this all back (from here[1] - I didn't vet these numbers but let's say it's order of magnitude correct - also, this is US numbers, but you get the idea) - is there a better way to spend than this?: - Pensions $3,238.24 - Health Care $3,438.55 - Education $331.68 - Defense $2,771.78 - Welfare $1,092.87 - Protection $116.15 - Transportation $289.44 - General Government $140.06 - Other Spending $330.44 - Interest $1,008.40 - Balance $(0.31) I mean - I can GUARANTEE that I don't know how to spend on pensions, or defense, or education/etc better than a professional. I'm not saying they're perfect, but they're CERTAINLY better than me, and LIKELY better than someone with a profit seeking motive. [1] https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_estimate_vs_actual_2018_XXbs2n_00E0F0G0H0I0203040506070809010#usgs302 https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_estimate...

CryptoPunk 8y ago
The professional you trust to spend that taxpayer money has a profit motive just like the company owner whose company you purchase a service from in a free market. In the former, the professional can profit by trading their influence for money, by advocating for political parties that increase their pay (consider the pay gap between federal workers and private sector workers has grown steadily since 1950, in favor of the federal worker, as government sector unions wield enormous power in politics), and they can profit in time by putting in less time and effort than what they're responsible to provide. The latter can explicitly profit by winning your business in the market and charging more than their cost to produce. The latter works better in any industry that is natutally competitive because it's provided in the context of a competitive market which is shaped by consumer choice.
- TheIronYuppie 8y ago
  Yeah, I've worked in government for many years before I went to the private sector. While what you specify does exist, if it's more than 0.00001% of people, I'd be stunned. The average professional government worker makes $50k, and is terrified more than anything in the world of doing something bad that gets surfaced to congress. They would GLADLY forgo profit/influence/etc just to make sure they don't get disciplined. And to suggest that the private sector (worked in FAANG + M the majority of my life) doesn't trade influence, vote for political parties that help them, try to weasel out of work, etc is crazy. There's absolutely no difference. The only difference is that at the end of the day: - A private sector worker's job is to deliver a widget that is : amount they can sell it for - cost of production = profit - A public sector worker's job is to deliver a widget that is cost of production only (since there's no profit). Is the cost of production higher in government? Possibly. But at the end of the day, the fact that the government isn't targeting how much it can sell stuff for means it's pretty uniquely well suited for items which shouldn't be charged for in the first place (e.g safety, health, defense, security, etc)
  - CryptoPunk 8y ago
    >>The average professional government worker makes $50k, and is terrified more than anything in the world of doing something bad that gets surfaced to congress. The average federal worker makes over $100K a year, and have very secure employment, with formidable protections against being fired, thanks to their collective bargaining agreement. I don't know where you work, but considering the average compensation of federal workers, and the kind of collective bargaining agreements they have in place, I can't imagine your experience being typical. Moreover, even well-meaning individuals, who only live to serve, are sometimes not effective at what they do. Consumers being required to pay for the products and services they consume leads to them choosing those providers who provide products and services in the most cost-effective manner, and those who work less efficiently being pushed out of the market and hopefully into a role in the economy they're better suited at. This evolutionary process of the most efficient producers being allocated capital with which to grow is what is responsible for the massive increases in capital we see in the economy over a longer time-scales, as profit-motivated individuals invest in new manufacturing facilities, software platforms and service models to better compete, which results in the steadily improving quality and value of products offered in the market. >>The only difference is that at the end of the day: There is massively more accountability when consumers pay for what they consume, and when they have multiple options in the market. >>the fact that the government isn't targeting how much it can sell stuff for means it's pretty uniquely well suited for items which shouldn't be charged for in the first place (e.g safety, health, defense, security, etc) People should pay for the cost of the services that they consume no matter what it is. The only reason something should be provided by government is that competitive markets don't emerge in certain industries, like basic research, crime-fighting, backbone infrastructure and national defense.
beaconstudios 8y ago
I don't think government is terrible. I just think that if we want to tackle poverty via government, lack of funds is not the problem. I think you believe I'm a libertarian and are arguing against their rhetoric, but I'm not - I still think the government should be responsible for most of these services, but if we're talking about them needing more money I'd say they should tackle the huge waste first. Oh, and the reason I mentioned that number was to compare it against the average salary because it effectively means the government could employ half the country with its budget (not literally, but as a comparative measurement), which makes the huge number a bit more graspable.
- TheIronYuppie 8y ago
  I guess I'm just not seeing the huge waste, or the fact that this is "a lot of money." Is government perfect? Of course not! But I've worked at almost all of FAANG and the amount of waste there is PHENOMENAL. And those are "some of the best" run companies in the world. Would any of this be a large percentage of people's income? Sure! But that doesn't have a relevance. E.g. you could give 10 people the entire budget of the CDC ($5.6B) and they have generational wealth. Would I expect them to do as much good as the CDC does? No.
  - repolfx 8y ago
    I think the fact that you've spent so much time in the FAANG companies may explain why you can't see government waste. The Valley tech firms are frequently lauded as many positive things, but I've never seen anyone with a clue argue they're efficient. Innovative, competent at executing tech projects, impactful, concerned about social issues, whatever, but if anyone argued they didn't waste vast sums of money they'd need their heads examined. "Frugal" is not an adjective that has ever been associated with these firms not even in their pre-revenue startup days. Government waste is everywhere, although of course the definition of "waste" depends a lot on your perception of what it's legitimate for a government to be doing in the first place. Sometimes it's just incompetence. In the UK, it's been common in the past for local governments to do things like pay the same bills repeatedly without noticing they've done so, or they don't bother collecting taxes that are actually owed to them. I'm not sure if that's still a problem these days - I read about it during a previous anti-waste drive. Sometimes it's due to catastrophically over-optimistic ideas about what government can actually do. The UK runs an entirely nationalised, civil servant run health system. It's also the country responsible for the biggest failed IT project in history, an attempt to digitise the NHS. £13 billion flushed down the toilet and all they got for it was an email system. Is anyone really shocked that a vast government bureaucracy totally failed to implement an IT project yet spent unheard-of sums on failing? No, because government waste is everywhere. Sometimes it's due to trying to do things that governments shouldn't be doing in the first place. Like many countries the UK went through a "everyone should go to university" drive, a large scale and dubious social engineering project. The government guaranteed student debt and ... guess what ... huge numbers of students studied wasteful courses and built up debts they can never repay. The government has now admitted that if it did accounting like a company did it'd be entirely bankrupt, simply because it'd have been unable to move student debt off its books in the way it did so. The losses on these loans have been astronomical - directly wasted resources.

CryptoPunk 8y ago

The professional you trust to spend that taxpayer money has a profit motive just like the company owner whose company you purchase a service from in a free market. In the former, the professional can profit by trading their influence for money, by advocating for political parties that increase their pay (consider the pay gap between federal workers and private sector workers has grown steadily since 1950, in favor of the federal worker, as government sector unions wield enormous power in politics), and they can profit in time by putting in less time and effort than what they're responsible to provide. The latter can explicitly profit by winning your business in the market and charging more than their cost to produce. The latter works better in any industry that is natutally competitive because it's provided in the context of a competitive market which is shaped by consumer choice.

TheIronYuppie 8y ago
Yeah, I've worked in government for many years before I went to the private sector. While what you specify does exist, if it's more than 0.00001% of people, I'd be stunned. The average professional government worker makes $50k, and is terrified more than anything in the world of doing something bad that gets surfaced to congress. They would GLADLY forgo profit/influence/etc just to make sure they don't get disciplined. And to suggest that the private sector (worked in FAANG + M the majority of my life) doesn't trade influence, vote for political parties that help them, try to weasel out of work, etc is crazy. There's absolutely no difference. The only difference is that at the end of the day: - A private sector worker's job is to deliver a widget that is : amount they can sell it for - cost of production = profit - A public sector worker's job is to deliver a widget that is cost of production only (since there's no profit). Is the cost of production higher in government? Possibly. But at the end of the day, the fact that the government isn't targeting how much it can sell stuff for means it's pretty uniquely well suited for items which shouldn't be charged for in the first place (e.g safety, health, defense, security, etc)
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  >>The average professional government worker makes $50k, and is terrified more than anything in the world of doing something bad that gets surfaced to congress. The average federal worker makes over $100K a year, and have very secure employment, with formidable protections against being fired, thanks to their collective bargaining agreement. I don't know where you work, but considering the average compensation of federal workers, and the kind of collective bargaining agreements they have in place, I can't imagine your experience being typical. Moreover, even well-meaning individuals, who only live to serve, are sometimes not effective at what they do. Consumers being required to pay for the products and services they consume leads to them choosing those providers who provide products and services in the most cost-effective manner, and those who work less efficiently being pushed out of the market and hopefully into a role in the economy they're better suited at. This evolutionary process of the most efficient producers being allocated capital with which to grow is what is responsible for the massive increases in capital we see in the economy over a longer time-scales, as profit-motivated individuals invest in new manufacturing facilities, software platforms and service models to better compete, which results in the steadily improving quality and value of products offered in the market. >>The only difference is that at the end of the day: There is massively more accountability when consumers pay for what they consume, and when they have multiple options in the market. >>the fact that the government isn't targeting how much it can sell stuff for means it's pretty uniquely well suited for items which shouldn't be charged for in the first place (e.g safety, health, defense, security, etc) People should pay for the cost of the services that they consume no matter what it is. The only reason something should be provided by government is that competitive markets don't emerge in certain industries, like basic research, crime-fighting, backbone infrastructure and national defense.

beaconstudios 8y ago

I don't think government is terrible. I just think that if we want to tackle poverty via government, lack of funds is not the problem. I think you believe I'm a libertarian and are arguing against their rhetoric, but I'm not - I still think the government should be responsible for most of these services, but if we're talking about them needing more money I'd say they should tackle the huge waste first. Oh, and the reason I mentioned that number was to compare it against the average salary because it effectively means the government could employ half the country with its budget (not literally, but as a comparative measurement), which makes the huge number a bit more graspable.

TheIronYuppie 8y ago
I guess I'm just not seeing the huge waste, or the fact that this is "a lot of money." Is government perfect? Of course not! But I've worked at almost all of FAANG and the amount of waste there is PHENOMENAL. And those are "some of the best" run companies in the world. Would any of this be a large percentage of people's income? Sure! But that doesn't have a relevance. E.g. you could give 10 people the entire budget of the CDC ($5.6B) and they have generational wealth. Would I expect them to do as much good as the CDC does? No.
- repolfx 8y ago
  I think the fact that you've spent so much time in the FAANG companies may explain why you can't see government waste. The Valley tech firms are frequently lauded as many positive things, but I've never seen anyone with a clue argue they're efficient. Innovative, competent at executing tech projects, impactful, concerned about social issues, whatever, but if anyone argued they didn't waste vast sums of money they'd need their heads examined. "Frugal" is not an adjective that has ever been associated with these firms not even in their pre-revenue startup days. Government waste is everywhere, although of course the definition of "waste" depends a lot on your perception of what it's legitimate for a government to be doing in the first place. Sometimes it's just incompetence. In the UK, it's been common in the past for local governments to do things like pay the same bills repeatedly without noticing they've done so, or they don't bother collecting taxes that are actually owed to them. I'm not sure if that's still a problem these days - I read about it during a previous anti-waste drive. Sometimes it's due to catastrophically over-optimistic ideas about what government can actually do. The UK runs an entirely nationalised, civil servant run health system. It's also the country responsible for the biggest failed IT project in history, an attempt to digitise the NHS. £13 billion flushed down the toilet and all they got for it was an email system. Is anyone really shocked that a vast government bureaucracy totally failed to implement an IT project yet spent unheard-of sums on failing? No, because government waste is everywhere. Sometimes it's due to trying to do things that governments shouldn't be doing in the first place. Like many countries the UK went through a "everyone should go to university" drive, a large scale and dubious social engineering project. The government guaranteed student debt and ... guess what ... huge numbers of students studied wasteful courses and built up debts they can never repay. The government has now admitted that if it did accounting like a company did it'd be entirely bankrupt, simply because it'd have been unable to move student debt off its books in the way it did so. The losses on these loans have been astronomical - directly wasted resources.