8 ms·

If the entire NBA got suspended over one sick employee, could the same please happen to the TSA over two?

by Cyberdog 7y ago

mythrwy 7y ago
Maybe when there are no flights they won't be needed anyway.
- MegaButts 7y ago
  The TSA was never really needed for anything other than security theater and creating bullshit jobs for politicians. https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8701741/tsa-screenings-homeland-security-red-teams-95-percent-failure https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8701741/tsa-screenings-hom...
leggomylibro 7y ago
Probably not; it's basically a massive jobs program to employ the otherwise unemployable, and furloughing them all would twist the knife into the economy because most TSA agents are in income brackets that stop spending when their paychecks pause.
- MegaButts 7y ago
  I've always hated how we don't create useful jobs for people that need work. There is so much infrastructure in this country that is deteriorating, why aren't we doing anything about that? Instead we create jobs that inconvenience everyone and provide no real value. In fact, they're harming the airline industry, so you could argue they're a net negative on the economy.
  - leggomylibro 7y ago
    I'm with you, it seems like it would be good for everyone if we created job programs with the simple stated purpose of employing people, instead of funneling busy-work jobs through pork-barrel spending. The people doing the work could feel more fulfilled, shared resources and services could be improved, and it could encourage social cohesion instead of discouraging it like the TSA does. Oh well.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > In fact, they're harming the airline industry TSA was created as a massive handout to the airline industry, in response to their request for relief in the wake of 9/11; they were previously responsible for security and the associated liability, but were relieved of the function and future liability by the introduction of TSA and at the same time given backward-reaching relief from liability.
    - sbuttgereit 7y ago
      This is a current day narrative cast in events drawn from the past. However, and I was plenty old enough at the time to be tuned into the political reality, was not that the airlines were begging to shift the costs of airport security to the government, but rather that proponents of expansive government responsibility insisting that something as important as airport security could not be trusted to the private sector. Consider this rather later statement from Sen. Joe Lieberman, one of the early proponents of creating a public airport security agency: "Regrettably, some of my colleagues in the House and Senate are resolved to undermine TSA - and therefore airport security itself - by advocating for the pre-9/11 system of screening by private contractors. My response to that is: how quickly we forget. Mr. President, we have already tried an aviation security system run by private contractors. It very tragically did not work. The 9/11 attacks did not occur because of one, two, or three specific vulnerabilities. They occurred because a number of our defenses - including our system of airport screening - were simply inadequate. [...] It became clear to many of us that aviation security was inseparable from national security, and we could not, and should not, rely on the private sector to do the job. The security of our skies would have to become a government responsibility. Americans need to be safe and secure wherever and whenever they traveled. And while I would not want to cast blame or criticism on any one contractor, we've already witnessed the results of a system utilizing private security companies which were constantly pressured to focus on costs first, and security second.", Senator Joseph Lieberman, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 [https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/majority-media/lieberman-dont-undermine_airport-security-by-privatizing-airport-screening https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/majority-media/lieberman-...] While that statement came later, it was very much in line with the argumentation in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and was broadly supported by left and right. More at stake, reading between the lines, was much less to do with any corporate interests and more with congress just wanting to appear to be "doing something" in the wake of a national tragedy. Consider this more contemporary testimony from Rep. Nancy Pelosi: "Since the attacks, steps have been taken to realign federal agencies and change responsibilities, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security -- another brainchild of the senator from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman -- and the Terrorism Threat Integration Center being among the most notable. These may turn out to be worthwhile actions; however, my concern has been that these entities were instinctive responses -- although Senator Lieberman had suggested his department long before September 11th -- to general perception that things were not right, rather than a result of an exhaustive inquiry across the government with specific findings and specific recommendations for change", Rep. Nancy Pelosi, May 22, 2003, [https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-22.htm https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing2/9-11Com...] Trying to couch what happened with the nationalization of airport security as being a handout to corporate interests after the fact is like trying to demonize health insurance companies by saying that current day efforts to nationalize the health care system is really just an effort to give hand outs to big businesses involved in health. Given how historically my friends in various progressive movements are so often advocates of precisely this sort of government assumption of responsibility; perhaps if the parent comment is correct in their assertion, then maybe we should be discussing how easily duped those same progressives are. [EDIT: added Pelosi comment]
  - clairity 7y ago
    wish they were all taken to the nearest animal shelter to pick a dog to train as bomb sniffers instead. it wouldn’t be foolproof but would have higher effectiveness than now and would improve airport efficiency (you walk right through as dozens of dogs sniff you randomly). plus we’d immediately reduce/eliminate the dog euthanasia problem we have now.
    - kyleee 7y ago
      I like it. Can most/all dogs be trained for bomb sniffing, and is there any age cutoff?
      - jjeaff 7y ago
        One person will inevitably get bit by a dog that wasn't trained quite well enough and then that's the only thing we see on the news for a week and then that ruins that plan for everyone.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    on the other hand, I'd much rather have incompetent clowns doing security theater than building critical infrastructure.
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    It's not that we don't. It's that we can't. Most public sector jobs have a ratchet on cost to employ. i.e. cost only goes up over time. For instance, you cannot employ a janitor for BART even though you need one. Why? The rules say you have to keep him and pay him a guaranteed payout pension etc. etc. To be clear, I'm not against that or anything. Just stating how things are. It is optimal under these conditions to minimize employment from the state and where possible spread it across regions. Also, you can't really create a new job for lots of people because when you get a sufficient size they become a powerful economic lobbying force with strong allies and good rhetoric. After all "should our X be paid only Y while NFL/NBA/mayors etc. get paid Z?" is pretty convincing to lots of people. So when you create jobs you need to put them in places where there are opposing forces. If you just created construction jobs, you'd be paying them $150k each all the time, and you'd always have to expand it. The rhetoric works very well here "should the people responsible for the safety of our bridges only be paid Z?". Now, if you create jobs that people don't want people working on, you get natural limiters. No one wants a massive TSA. People will complain if there is over-sizing of the TSA and they see lots of people standing around. This isn't necessarily conscious. Just the result of the constraints and people acting locally optimally. i.e. no one needs to say "let's choose TSA jobs over bridge maintenance jobs". All you need is someone in the room to say "I can't give you that budget for the bridge maintenance because then I have to give that other guy the budget for the tunnel maintenance and I don't think I can get approval for everyone because jurisdiction Y doesn't have any bridges or tunnels" while the TSA is pretty uniformly spread and so it applies to nearly everyone evenly.
  - macinjosh 7y ago
    I agree. My personal theory is that any job that requires physical labor is usually met with disdain. Building infrastructure is hard work that not many people are willing to do. That’s why our colleges are overrun and student debt is so high. We teach kids from an early age that if you don’t go to college you won’t get a cushy job and you’ll end up as a highway construction flagger or something. As if that is the worst thing in the world.
B-Con 7y ago
It wasn't suspended over the one, that was just the signal that they were doomed. The alternative was to wait a few weeks until a large fraction of the teams had incomplete rosters, owners and fans were furious at the asymmetrical competition, and there was social/legal pressure to stop sponsoring events drawing large crowds into social proximity, and then cancel. They knew that was coming and it's better to pull the plug early.
brudgers 7y ago
The US sports industry shut down as soon as WHO declared pandemic. The declaration facilitates insurance claims for lost revenue and offers a sound defense in response to lawsuits for harm caused by cancelled events. I suspect the TSA as a potential transmission vector was a consideration in restricting travel from Europe. This is not a scenario without existing contingency plans. Within hours of the WHO declaration, Doctors Without Borders was outside my local Walmart. That wasn’t a phone call earlier in the day.
- oillio 7y ago
  Almost all insurance policies specifically exclude pandemics. This tragedy won't hit insurance companies directly much at all.
  - brudgers 7y ago
    It won’t hit insurance companies because it’s the type of risk that’s offloaded into the reinsurance market. Extrapolating from retail insurance products to bespoke policies for sophisticated well capitalized businesses is an error. Pontoon boats on Lake Havasu aren’t insured for piracy. Lloyd’s covers container ships for it because that’s what they do.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Does the WHO have any clout when it comes to declarations like that? Wouldn't it need to be a state or federal declaration?
  - brudgers 7y ago
    The global insurance industry players operate internationally. Lloyd’s of London is an example. Zurich Insurance Group is another. Insurance is a financial product. The terms of the policy are entirely negotiable and probably negotiated at the league level for the NBA because of merchandising, image, and TV rights. Those rights are sold internationally as highlighted by the NBA falling afoul of China with regard to the Ugars a few months ago.
- 7y ago

If the entire NBA got suspended over one sick employee, could the same please happen to the TSA over two?

mythrwy 7y ago

Maybe when there are no flights they won't be needed anyway.

MegaButts 7y ago
The TSA was never really needed for anything other than security theater and creating bullshit jobs for politicians. https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8701741/tsa-screenings-homeland-security-red-teams-95-percent-failure https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8701741/tsa-screenings-hom...

leggomylibro 7y ago

Probably not; it's basically a massive jobs program to employ the otherwise unemployable, and furloughing them all would twist the knife into the economy because most TSA agents are in income brackets that stop spending when their paychecks pause.

MegaButts 7y ago
I've always hated how we don't create useful jobs for people that need work. There is so much infrastructure in this country that is deteriorating, why aren't we doing anything about that? Instead we create jobs that inconvenience everyone and provide no real value. In fact, they're harming the airline industry, so you could argue they're a net negative on the economy.
- leggomylibro 7y ago
  I'm with you, it seems like it would be good for everyone if we created job programs with the simple stated purpose of employing people, instead of funneling busy-work jobs through pork-barrel spending. The people doing the work could feel more fulfilled, shared resources and services could be improved, and it could encourage social cohesion instead of discouraging it like the TSA does. Oh well.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > In fact, they're harming the airline industry TSA was created as a massive handout to the airline industry, in response to their request for relief in the wake of 9/11; they were previously responsible for security and the associated liability, but were relieved of the function and future liability by the introduction of TSA and at the same time given backward-reaching relief from liability.
  - sbuttgereit 7y ago
    This is a current day narrative cast in events drawn from the past. However, and I was plenty old enough at the time to be tuned into the political reality, was not that the airlines were begging to shift the costs of airport security to the government, but rather that proponents of expansive government responsibility insisting that something as important as airport security could not be trusted to the private sector. Consider this rather later statement from Sen. Joe Lieberman, one of the early proponents of creating a public airport security agency: "Regrettably, some of my colleagues in the House and Senate are resolved to undermine TSA - and therefore airport security itself - by advocating for the pre-9/11 system of screening by private contractors. My response to that is: how quickly we forget. Mr. President, we have already tried an aviation security system run by private contractors. It very tragically did not work. The 9/11 attacks did not occur because of one, two, or three specific vulnerabilities. They occurred because a number of our defenses - including our system of airport screening - were simply inadequate. [...] It became clear to many of us that aviation security was inseparable from national security, and we could not, and should not, rely on the private sector to do the job. The security of our skies would have to become a government responsibility. Americans need to be safe and secure wherever and whenever they traveled. And while I would not want to cast blame or criticism on any one contractor, we've already witnessed the results of a system utilizing private security companies which were constantly pressured to focus on costs first, and security second.", Senator Joseph Lieberman, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 [https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/majority-media/lieberman-dont-undermine_airport-security-by-privatizing-airport-screening https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/majority-media/lieberman-...] While that statement came later, it was very much in line with the argumentation in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and was broadly supported by left and right. More at stake, reading between the lines, was much less to do with any corporate interests and more with congress just wanting to appear to be "doing something" in the wake of a national tragedy. Consider this more contemporary testimony from Rep. Nancy Pelosi: "Since the attacks, steps have been taken to realign federal agencies and change responsibilities, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security -- another brainchild of the senator from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman -- and the Terrorism Threat Integration Center being among the most notable. These may turn out to be worthwhile actions; however, my concern has been that these entities were instinctive responses -- although Senator Lieberman had suggested his department long before September 11th -- to general perception that things were not right, rather than a result of an exhaustive inquiry across the government with specific findings and specific recommendations for change", Rep. Nancy Pelosi, May 22, 2003, [https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-22.htm https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing2/9-11Com...] Trying to couch what happened with the nationalization of airport security as being a handout to corporate interests after the fact is like trying to demonize health insurance companies by saying that current day efforts to nationalize the health care system is really just an effort to give hand outs to big businesses involved in health. Given how historically my friends in various progressive movements are so often advocates of precisely this sort of government assumption of responsibility; perhaps if the parent comment is correct in their assertion, then maybe we should be discussing how easily duped those same progressives are. [EDIT: added Pelosi comment]
- clairity 7y ago
  wish they were all taken to the nearest animal shelter to pick a dog to train as bomb sniffers instead. it wouldn’t be foolproof but would have higher effectiveness than now and would improve airport efficiency (you walk right through as dozens of dogs sniff you randomly). plus we’d immediately reduce/eliminate the dog euthanasia problem we have now.
  - kyleee 7y ago
    I like it. Can most/all dogs be trained for bomb sniffing, and is there any age cutoff?
    - jjeaff 7y ago
      One person will inevitably get bit by a dog that wasn't trained quite well enough and then that's the only thing we see on the news for a week and then that ruins that plan for everyone.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  on the other hand, I'd much rather have incompetent clowns doing security theater than building critical infrastructure.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  It's not that we don't. It's that we can't. Most public sector jobs have a ratchet on cost to employ. i.e. cost only goes up over time. For instance, you cannot employ a janitor for BART even though you need one. Why? The rules say you have to keep him and pay him a guaranteed payout pension etc. etc. To be clear, I'm not against that or anything. Just stating how things are. It is optimal under these conditions to minimize employment from the state and where possible spread it across regions. Also, you can't really create a new job for lots of people because when you get a sufficient size they become a powerful economic lobbying force with strong allies and good rhetoric. After all "should our X be paid only Y while NFL/NBA/mayors etc. get paid Z?" is pretty convincing to lots of people. So when you create jobs you need to put them in places where there are opposing forces. If you just created construction jobs, you'd be paying them $150k each all the time, and you'd always have to expand it. The rhetoric works very well here "should the people responsible for the safety of our bridges only be paid Z?". Now, if you create jobs that people don't want people working on, you get natural limiters. No one wants a massive TSA. People will complain if there is over-sizing of the TSA and they see lots of people standing around. This isn't necessarily conscious. Just the result of the constraints and people acting locally optimally. i.e. no one needs to say "let's choose TSA jobs over bridge maintenance jobs". All you need is someone in the room to say "I can't give you that budget for the bridge maintenance because then I have to give that other guy the budget for the tunnel maintenance and I don't think I can get approval for everyone because jurisdiction Y doesn't have any bridges or tunnels" while the TSA is pretty uniformly spread and so it applies to nearly everyone evenly.
- macinjosh 7y ago
  I agree. My personal theory is that any job that requires physical labor is usually met with disdain. Building infrastructure is hard work that not many people are willing to do. That’s why our colleges are overrun and student debt is so high. We teach kids from an early age that if you don’t go to college you won’t get a cushy job and you’ll end up as a highway construction flagger or something. As if that is the worst thing in the world.

B-Con 7y ago

It wasn't suspended over the one, that was just the signal that they were doomed. The alternative was to wait a few weeks until a large fraction of the teams had incomplete rosters, owners and fans were furious at the asymmetrical competition, and there was social/legal pressure to stop sponsoring events drawing large crowds into social proximity, and then cancel. They knew that was coming and it's better to pull the plug early.

brudgers 7y ago

The US sports industry shut down as soon as WHO declared pandemic. The declaration facilitates insurance claims for lost revenue and offers a sound defense in response to lawsuits for harm caused by cancelled events. I suspect the TSA as a potential transmission vector was a consideration in restricting travel from Europe. This is not a scenario without existing contingency plans. Within hours of the WHO declaration, Doctors Without Borders was outside my local Walmart. That wasn’t a phone call earlier in the day.

oillio 7y ago
Almost all insurance policies specifically exclude pandemics. This tragedy won't hit insurance companies directly much at all.
- brudgers 7y ago
  It won’t hit insurance companies because it’s the type of risk that’s offloaded into the reinsurance market. Extrapolating from retail insurance products to bespoke policies for sophisticated well capitalized businesses is an error. Pontoon boats on Lake Havasu aren’t insured for piracy. Lloyd’s covers container ships for it because that’s what they do.
jjeaff 7y ago
Does the WHO have any clout when it comes to declarations like that? Wouldn't it need to be a state or federal declaration?
- brudgers 7y ago
  The global insurance industry players operate internationally. Lloyd’s of London is an example. Zurich Insurance Group is another. Insurance is a financial product. The terms of the policy are entirely negotiable and probably negotiated at the league level for the NBA because of merchandising, image, and TV rights. Those rights are sold internationally as highlighted by the NBA falling afoul of China with regard to the Ugars a few months ago.
7y ago