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If the country was run like a business, they wouldn't be in business, they would be bankrupt. The purpose of a business it create wealth. The purpose of govern

If the country was run like a business, they wouldn't be in business, they would be bankrupt. The purpose of a business it create wealth. The purpose of government is to take wealth. Government does some useful functions with the wealth it takes, but extremely inefficiently. Private enterprises which are profit motivated consistently outperform government on budget, quality and time.

CamelCaseName 8y ago
The purpose of businesses is to create private wealth. The purpose of government is to create social wealth.
sgjohnson 8y ago
It’s sad seeing people actually disagreeing with you. The US government is $21tn in debt. 21 trillion. With a constant budget deficit. No private entity would be ever allowed to go that far. If the Government is still taking money out of my paycheck, it simply isn’t shut down enough.
- SilasX 8y ago
  >It’s sad seeing people actually disagreeing with you. It's because of a high-status meme that's gone around that "Governments Aren't Households" followed by a pedantic lecture about a few dimensions where they have interesting, but not fundamental differences. And it's true: reliable, trusted governments e.g. suffer lower costs from going into debt, and are able to recapture some of the expenses. Plus, they can default in a way that's technically legal (inflate away the debt). But none of that changes the more important, relevant similarities: - There are limits to how quickly you can accumulate real resources to pay off debts. - There are severe consequences to being unable to pay debts. - There are debt levels that are dangerous to have and which prevent you from raising funds for real emergencies. All of these are true and relevant for both governments and households. Yes, you can debate how close you are to the breaking point, but you can't simply avoid the comparison entirely just because Governments Aren't Households.
- sgjohnson 8y ago
  >Plus, they can default in a way that's technically legal (inflate away the debt). Oh yes, along with my purchasing power. Amazing.
0xfeba 8y ago
> but extremely inefficiently Is there a reason government is inefficient?
- GlenTheMachine 8y ago
  Sure. First, many of the problems the government tries to solve are not problems with easy solutions. There are no businesses (that I know of, anyway) out there with the goal of providing free education to every child in a community. Or feeding and housing disabled people. And so on. THe failure of the government to perform better in these areas is sometimes referred to as "inefficiency", but what are we comparing government's performance against? Is there a baseline for how well any entity can do fighting a war on poverty? Second, often, the government has goals fundamentally different from making money, eg in fighting and winning wars. We complain about the F35 being a bondoggle. But that's only true if you think the government's goal is to acquire a better fighter aircraft than China or Russia for as little money as possible. But that isn't exactly the government's goal. The government wants to acquire a fighter aircraft that makes winning such wars most likely -- in other words, it is maximizing the likelihood of winning wars. The cost of that maximization is clearly secondary. To a business, any expense past what you need to beat the competition looks like waste. To the government, any step you didn't take to maximize your chance of success looks like risk. Third, the government holds itself to legal ethics standards that, inevitably, slow it down. Take government contracting. When the government lets a contract, it can't go to the obviously best qualified business and write a check. It has to advertise. How long it has to advertise for depends on the size of the contract, but it's rarely less than 90 days. It has to fairly evaluate all proposals. It gives extra points to small or minority owned businesses. It then writes a contract that is in keeping with the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (the FAR), which is a body of US Law that literally takes up an entire row on the bookshelf. Most of that law was written to protect businesses from potentially unethical government behavior, given that the government is more powerful than any business it is likely to contract with. For instance, the interaction between the Contracting Officer's Representative (the COR - the primary liason between the government and the contractor) is strictly limited to reduce the ability of the government to ask for special favors. Violations of the contract or the law surrounding it as a result of behavior of the COR can result in the COR being personally liable, which is to say: if you, as a COR, result in either the government or the business losing money, they can come after your house and your retirement, all the ay up to the value of the losses. If the government loses a million dollars, the COR can be held liable for that amount. As a consequence, there's little incentive to streamline the way the government works with contractors, and every incentive in the world to make sure every t is crossed and every i dotted. This list can go on and on. The ultimate reason the government is less efficient than a business is that it isn't one. It isn't solving the same problems, it isn't operating by the same rules, and it doesn't have the same incentives.

CamelCaseName 8y ago

The purpose of businesses is to create private wealth. The purpose of government is to create social wealth.

sgjohnson 8y ago

It’s sad seeing people actually disagreeing with you. The US government is $21tn in debt. 21 trillion. With a constant budget deficit. No private entity would be ever allowed to go that far. If the Government is still taking money out of my paycheck, it simply isn’t shut down enough.

SilasX 8y ago
>It’s sad seeing people actually disagreeing with you. It's because of a high-status meme that's gone around that "Governments Aren't Households" followed by a pedantic lecture about a few dimensions where they have interesting, but not fundamental differences. And it's true: reliable, trusted governments e.g. suffer lower costs from going into debt, and are able to recapture some of the expenses. Plus, they can default in a way that's technically legal (inflate away the debt). But none of that changes the more important, relevant similarities: - There are limits to how quickly you can accumulate real resources to pay off debts. - There are severe consequences to being unable to pay debts. - There are debt levels that are dangerous to have and which prevent you from raising funds for real emergencies. All of these are true and relevant for both governments and households. Yes, you can debate how close you are to the breaking point, but you can't simply avoid the comparison entirely just because Governments Aren't Households.
sgjohnson 8y ago
>Plus, they can default in a way that's technically legal (inflate away the debt). Oh yes, along with my purchasing power. Amazing.

0xfeba 8y ago

> but extremely inefficiently Is there a reason government is inefficient?

GlenTheMachine 8y ago
Sure. First, many of the problems the government tries to solve are not problems with easy solutions. There are no businesses (that I know of, anyway) out there with the goal of providing free education to every child in a community. Or feeding and housing disabled people. And so on. THe failure of the government to perform better in these areas is sometimes referred to as "inefficiency", but what are we comparing government's performance against? Is there a baseline for how well any entity can do fighting a war on poverty? Second, often, the government has goals fundamentally different from making money, eg in fighting and winning wars. We complain about the F35 being a bondoggle. But that's only true if you think the government's goal is to acquire a better fighter aircraft than China or Russia for as little money as possible. But that isn't exactly the government's goal. The government wants to acquire a fighter aircraft that makes winning such wars most likely -- in other words, it is maximizing the likelihood of winning wars. The cost of that maximization is clearly secondary. To a business, any expense past what you need to beat the competition looks like waste. To the government, any step you didn't take to maximize your chance of success looks like risk. Third, the government holds itself to legal ethics standards that, inevitably, slow it down. Take government contracting. When the government lets a contract, it can't go to the obviously best qualified business and write a check. It has to advertise. How long it has to advertise for depends on the size of the contract, but it's rarely less than 90 days. It has to fairly evaluate all proposals. It gives extra points to small or minority owned businesses. It then writes a contract that is in keeping with the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (the FAR), which is a body of US Law that literally takes up an entire row on the bookshelf. Most of that law was written to protect businesses from potentially unethical government behavior, given that the government is more powerful than any business it is likely to contract with. For instance, the interaction between the Contracting Officer's Representative (the COR - the primary liason between the government and the contractor) is strictly limited to reduce the ability of the government to ask for special favors. Violations of the contract or the law surrounding it as a result of behavior of the COR can result in the COR being personally liable, which is to say: if you, as a COR, result in either the government or the business losing money, they can come after your house and your retirement, all the ay up to the value of the losses. If the government loses a million dollars, the COR can be held liable for that amount. As a consequence, there's little incentive to streamline the way the government works with contractors, and every incentive in the world to make sure every t is crossed and every i dotted. This list can go on and on. The ultimate reason the government is less efficient than a business is that it isn't one. It isn't solving the same problems, it isn't operating by the same rules, and it doesn't have the same incentives.