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It's a conflict of interest and therefore ought to be viewed with suspicion. The motives are to be distrusted and there is good reason for this. What expertis

It's a conflict of interest and therefore ought to be viewed with suspicion. The motives are to be distrusted and there is good reason for this. What expertise does Chertoff have with regard to airport scanners? I'd be willing to be he's never even dealt with one. His value comes from contacts. His value could be that he made a secret deal to award the contract to this company in exchange for a high paying job. That doesn't make it true that this is what happened but it makes the whole thing suspicious. The Representative that wrote the Medicare prescription plan quit Congress after its passage. He's now paid $2 million per year to be a lobbyist for the drug industry. I think it's fair to say that he was bought and paid for. Particularly in light of what a horrible piece of legislation it was. Chertoff should not be able to directly profit from decisions he made while being Secretary of Homeland Security. I'm cynical and so I tend not to give the benefit of the doubt in these cases.

jessriedel 16y ago
Your accusations are exactly the kind of misguided thinking I was warning against. > What expertise does Chertoff have with regard to airport scanners? I'd be willing to be he's never even dealt with one. Chertoff works for a law firm which does work contracted by the scanner company. Nobody claims Chertoff's expertise is in the technical aspects of scanners, it's in the workings of the government regulation, which makes him uniquely informed on dealing with the legal issues surrounding the scanner. >The Representative that wrote the Medicare prescription plan quit Congress after its passage. He's now paid $2 million per year to be a lobbyist for the drug industry. I think it's fair to say that he was bought and paid for. First, representatives don't write their own bills. They are written by staffers, and these staffers are usually employed by the committees of the house, not the individual representative. Second, the bill went through innumerable change between its submission to the committee and it's passage. Unless all the voting representatives were on the take, they easily could have changed any particular lines they didn't like. At the end of the day, it was passed by both houses of congress. Third, it unwise to construct elaborate bribery explanations when there are such easy, simply explanations. (Seniors are basically voting themselves money.) > Particularly in light of what a horrible piece of legislation it was. Are you really claiming that congress's passing of horrible legislation is evidence of corruption? Congress passes horrible legislation every day. It's what it does. ----- The point is that even rudimentary knowledge about how the legislative process works usually debunks most of these conspiracy stories immediately. You should be suspicious, sure, but if you're ascribing a significant Bayesian probability to these corruption charges being true without further evidence, you're making a serious mistake in reasoning.
- yequalsx 16y ago
  "which makes him uniquely informed on dealing with the legal issues surrounding the scanner." Chertoff is not uniquely informed. He's a lawyer but I'd be willing to bet he's not even an expert on government regulation. He does have lots of contacts though. "First, representatives don't write their own bills. They are written by staffers, and these staffers are usually employed by the committees of the house, not the individual representative." True, he didn't write the actual words. He was chairman of the committee responsible for the legislation. He was in a position to ensure that it was written into the legislation that Medicare could not negotiate on the price of drugs. Bills do go through changes but it's not difficult for the chairman of the committee that wrote the bill to ensure that key provisions remained. You know, Congressman sometimes do have power and are more than mere voting machines. Staffers don't run everything. "Third, it unwise to construct elaborate bribery explanations when there are such easy, simply explanations. (Seniors are basically voting themselves money.)" It's not an elaborate theory. It's actually a simple one. Corruption does happen and a red flag ought to be raised when the Congressman whose committee wrote the part of the legislation forbidding Medicare from negotiating on the price of the drugs it was being forced to buy gets a $2 million a year consulting job. There is nothing elaborate about this and rational people will look askance at this situation. Bayesian probability can only be talked about in reference to a probability space and events of that probability space. It's not really relevant to talk about Baye's theorem in this instance since no events or probability space has been defined. I wasn't using probability theory. I was using the fact that in my mind the best explanation why a Congressman who gets a $2 million a year job from the drug industry after passing horrible legislation that tremendously benefits the drug industry is most likely (used in a colloquial sense) corrupt.
  - jessriedel 16y ago
    I'm going any deeper except to say that Chertoff (a) is a lawyer and (b) was the United States Secretary of Homeland Security. I can't think of anyone on the planet more informed on the regulatory issues surrounding airport scanners being purchased by the department of Homeland Security than Chertoff.

jessriedel 16y ago

Your accusations are exactly the kind of misguided thinking I was warning against. > What expertise does Chertoff have with regard to airport scanners? I'd be willing to be he's never even dealt with one. Chertoff works for a law firm which does work contracted by the scanner company. Nobody claims Chertoff's expertise is in the technical aspects of scanners, it's in the workings of the government regulation, which makes him uniquely informed on dealing with the legal issues surrounding the scanner. >The Representative that wrote the Medicare prescription plan quit Congress after its passage. He's now paid $2 million per year to be a lobbyist for the drug industry. I think it's fair to say that he was bought and paid for. First, representatives don't write their own bills. They are written by staffers, and these staffers are usually employed by the committees of the house, not the individual representative. Second, the bill went through innumerable change between its submission to the committee and it's passage. Unless all the voting representatives were on the take, they easily could have changed any particular lines they didn't like. At the end of the day, it was passed by both houses of congress. Third, it unwise to construct elaborate bribery explanations when there are such easy, simply explanations. (Seniors are basically voting themselves money.) > Particularly in light of what a horrible piece of legislation it was. Are you really claiming that congress's passing of horrible legislation is evidence of corruption? Congress passes horrible legislation every day. It's what it does. ----- The point is that even rudimentary knowledge about how the legislative process works usually debunks most of these conspiracy stories immediately. You should be suspicious, sure, but if you're ascribing a significant Bayesian probability to these corruption charges being true without further evidence, you're making a serious mistake in reasoning.

yequalsx 16y ago
"which makes him uniquely informed on dealing with the legal issues surrounding the scanner." Chertoff is not uniquely informed. He's a lawyer but I'd be willing to bet he's not even an expert on government regulation. He does have lots of contacts though. "First, representatives don't write their own bills. They are written by staffers, and these staffers are usually employed by the committees of the house, not the individual representative." True, he didn't write the actual words. He was chairman of the committee responsible for the legislation. He was in a position to ensure that it was written into the legislation that Medicare could not negotiate on the price of drugs. Bills do go through changes but it's not difficult for the chairman of the committee that wrote the bill to ensure that key provisions remained. You know, Congressman sometimes do have power and are more than mere voting machines. Staffers don't run everything. "Third, it unwise to construct elaborate bribery explanations when there are such easy, simply explanations. (Seniors are basically voting themselves money.)" It's not an elaborate theory. It's actually a simple one. Corruption does happen and a red flag ought to be raised when the Congressman whose committee wrote the part of the legislation forbidding Medicare from negotiating on the price of the drugs it was being forced to buy gets a $2 million a year consulting job. There is nothing elaborate about this and rational people will look askance at this situation. Bayesian probability can only be talked about in reference to a probability space and events of that probability space. It's not really relevant to talk about Baye's theorem in this instance since no events or probability space has been defined. I wasn't using probability theory. I was using the fact that in my mind the best explanation why a Congressman who gets a $2 million a year job from the drug industry after passing horrible legislation that tremendously benefits the drug industry is most likely (used in a colloquial sense) corrupt.
- jessriedel 16y ago
  I'm going any deeper except to say that Chertoff (a) is a lawyer and (b) was the United States Secretary of Homeland Security. I can't think of anyone on the planet more informed on the regulatory issues surrounding airport scanners being purchased by the department of Homeland Security than Chertoff.