5 ms·

You are being kind. From my perspective, the ineptitude and mismanagement easily goes back 50 years, not 20. It's sad to see so many people blinded by the hat

You are being kind. From my perspective, the ineptitude and mismanagement easily goes back 50 years, not 20. It's sad to see so many people blinded by the hatred aimed at Trump to be completely blind to how it is we got here. A simple example from data that came out today: Governor Cuomo refused to buy 16,000 ventilators in 2015, when he was told they would be needed for an event such as what we are experiencing. Remember this is when Bill Gates was already on TED talking about the next pandemic. And so, today, Cuomo tries to blame their lack of preparedness on the federal government. The other item you mentioned that is also right on point, is the brutal erosion of our ability to manufacture almost anything at scale. And then you have people, reporters and politicians yelling and screaming about the Trump administration not materializing masks, bed, ventilators and entire hospitals instantly out of thin air. I mean, we barely make our own molds for plastic injection molding in the US and we are indignant because we can't spin-up industrial scale manufacturing capacity in days? It takes MONTHS, no, YEARS, to integrate some of these supply chains and produce quality product at scale. Segments of our society, "leadership" and media are acting as if a combination of Superman and Captain Picard are going to swing into action, instantly materialize millions of products we don't have the industrial base to produce and fly around the planet at ludicrous speed in reverse to turn back time. Well, that's not reality. Reality is we can't make shit in the US any more and it takes a tremendous amount of time to spin up production lines from nothing, particularly if we are talking about life saving devices. Everyone needs to calm down, stop pointing fingers and find ways to contribute. As the saying goes, "United we Stand". Time to show what that really means or face failure, as the rest of that phrase predicts.

greedo 7y ago
Most of my life I've been told that government is horrible, and that the most terrifying thing to hear is "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." When an entire generation hears the demonization of civil service (though not military service), then it's no wonder that we end up with a government that can't serve us.
- someguydave 7y ago
  Why isn’t there any political will to completely overhaul civil service hiring, pay, qualifications, “tenure”, and so forth?
  - sudosysgen 7y ago
    This will likely get downvoted, but it seems to be the most accurate explanation. American culture is not able to understand the common good anymore. And it cannot understand the brutality of politics, nor the need to participate in it. This is the age of children of cages, forgotten in a week for the official opposition to complain about civility on Twitter. Meanwhile other Western countries burn tires and flip over cars for a thousand times less. In non Western countries, people stand up to bullets in order to complain about the government. But this country made mean people on Twitter the main issue in the election cycle, above Healthcare, War and Concentration camps. The American public has grown soft, largely by design.
  - Proziam 7y ago
    I'm going to give a very cynical response to this, but I believe all of these factors are relevant. I'm also going to be going against the grain of the political leaning of this forum. I hope that we can discuss the points where we agree and avoid getting stuck at the first point of disagreement. Factors: 1. Typically, people who wish to be in power are not the people who really want to use power for some greater good. Police make great examples because their abuses of power are often made visible, but this issue goes all the way up to the top. To give an example from right this moment, that I'm sure withstands bipartisan scrutiny, just look at how much political posturing and hot air has stalled the Covid-19 stimulus that is currently being negotiated. [1]The last proposal from the dems included identity politics and various climate provisions. Whether you agree with the policies or not doesn't really matter in this case, what sense does it make to fight for these policies right now in this bill? 2. Our political system centralizes all decision-making power into two parties. Each party has massive influence and control, even to the point of 'rigging' their own internal election processes. As such, the average American has substantially less ability to influencer outcomes at the upper tiers of government as they often think they do. This is the reason there was such distrust of parties by the founding fathers. The solution to this is to either have unlimited parties (requires a different voting system, of which there are several viable options) or to have no parties at all. Then there is a need to institute concepts like a public veto/vote for when things go haywire (think Brexit, but ideally without the intentional political incompetence). 3. Removing those in power is a scary affair. If your government decides to do heinous (or criminally stupid) things and there's no 'political will' at the top to change course, the people must intervene. How much peaceful recourse is there? There are finite 'legal' moves to be made, and they all take time. Once you run out of those options or time, the only remaining choices are 'illegal' and thus risky to individuals - and therefore require large groups of people to organize. This is a problem understood by our founders, evident in their writings. It's also been commonly addressed since the 1800s in sayings like: [2]"There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." 4. Both parties in the United States, despite their protestations to the contrary, have proven to have corruption up to their highest levels. [3]Both Democrats and Republicans dumped stock running up to the current crisis - after they were briefed about the risks. There's also intense 'fighting' over entirely manufactured issues. [4]One example I use often is "assault weapons," which are used to commit murder less than half as often as people's fists. It's hard to even imagine how much progress could be made if the same political energy were expended on more impactful social issues. (Targeting poverty which leads to desperation and organized crime might be a good start). [1]https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pelosi-schumer-contagion-11585006077 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pelosi-schumer-contagion-11... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty [3]https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/coronavirus-trading-house-senate-140260 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/coronavirus-trading... [4]https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
x0x0 7y ago
The role of the federal government is to be our insurer and to eat risk. Unlike state governments, there is no balanced budget requirement. Blaming Cuomo -- ie all 50 individual states, with not only currently varying populations, but populations and incomes and risks that vary over time -- for not independently staffing up and buying equipment to be prepared against all eventualities is silly. Second, Trump diddled for 8-12 weeks to start manufacturing things. People are screaming because the Chinese government confirmed by Dec 31 that they had cases of the virus. That means the NSA had almost certainly been hearing about it for a couple weeks. Given the worlds' experience with SARS and MERS, that was the time to get serious. What was possible with this warning? Taiwan, for example, used this time to create 32 new production lines [1] for masks. Later, there were classified briefings that Republicans like Senator Burr were privately warning businesses about. While lying to the public and using the warning period not to get serious about dealing with the pandemic but to save money. We had 8-12 weeks of warning, and Trump either took no serious action or deliberately delayed decisive action to start figuring out supply lines of respirators or ventilators. We had, to use your phrase, "MONTHS" -- actually a quarter of a year -- and Trump squandered them. He invoked the Defense Production Act YESTERDAY for god's sake. The time to do that was when it became clear containment had failed. Ie sometime around mid-January. ps -- we make plenty of stuff in the US. in reality, the US is the second largest manufacturer in the world after China. That's not to say that manufacturing isn't declining in the united states, but to pretend the enormous set of US manufacturers doesn't exist is not grounded in facts. See also BLS 51-4111 -- 72k employed in the US in tool & die manufacturing. [1] https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202003230016 https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202003230016
nocorpwelfare 7y ago
All correct. Also, Snowflakes think the country can run all shut down, but not if you want food on your table. We have to get back going, take our hits, and survive. The alternative is worse.

greedo 7y ago

Most of my life I've been told that government is horrible, and that the most terrifying thing to hear is "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." When an entire generation hears the demonization of civil service (though not military service), then it's no wonder that we end up with a government that can't serve us.

someguydave 7y ago
Why isn’t there any political will to completely overhaul civil service hiring, pay, qualifications, “tenure”, and so forth?
- sudosysgen 7y ago
  This will likely get downvoted, but it seems to be the most accurate explanation. American culture is not able to understand the common good anymore. And it cannot understand the brutality of politics, nor the need to participate in it. This is the age of children of cages, forgotten in a week for the official opposition to complain about civility on Twitter. Meanwhile other Western countries burn tires and flip over cars for a thousand times less. In non Western countries, people stand up to bullets in order to complain about the government. But this country made mean people on Twitter the main issue in the election cycle, above Healthcare, War and Concentration camps. The American public has grown soft, largely by design.
- Proziam 7y ago
  I'm going to give a very cynical response to this, but I believe all of these factors are relevant. I'm also going to be going against the grain of the political leaning of this forum. I hope that we can discuss the points where we agree and avoid getting stuck at the first point of disagreement. Factors: 1. Typically, people who wish to be in power are not the people who really want to use power for some greater good. Police make great examples because their abuses of power are often made visible, but this issue goes all the way up to the top. To give an example from right this moment, that I'm sure withstands bipartisan scrutiny, just look at how much political posturing and hot air has stalled the Covid-19 stimulus that is currently being negotiated. [1]The last proposal from the dems included identity politics and various climate provisions. Whether you agree with the policies or not doesn't really matter in this case, what sense does it make to fight for these policies right now in this bill? 2. Our political system centralizes all decision-making power into two parties. Each party has massive influence and control, even to the point of 'rigging' their own internal election processes. As such, the average American has substantially less ability to influencer outcomes at the upper tiers of government as they often think they do. This is the reason there was such distrust of parties by the founding fathers. The solution to this is to either have unlimited parties (requires a different voting system, of which there are several viable options) or to have no parties at all. Then there is a need to institute concepts like a public veto/vote for when things go haywire (think Brexit, but ideally without the intentional political incompetence). 3. Removing those in power is a scary affair. If your government decides to do heinous (or criminally stupid) things and there's no 'political will' at the top to change course, the people must intervene. How much peaceful recourse is there? There are finite 'legal' moves to be made, and they all take time. Once you run out of those options or time, the only remaining choices are 'illegal' and thus risky to individuals - and therefore require large groups of people to organize. This is a problem understood by our founders, evident in their writings. It's also been commonly addressed since the 1800s in sayings like: [2]"There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." 4. Both parties in the United States, despite their protestations to the contrary, have proven to have corruption up to their highest levels. [3]Both Democrats and Republicans dumped stock running up to the current crisis - after they were briefed about the risks. There's also intense 'fighting' over entirely manufactured issues. [4]One example I use often is "assault weapons," which are used to commit murder less than half as often as people's fists. It's hard to even imagine how much progress could be made if the same political energy were expended on more impactful social issues. (Targeting poverty which leads to desperation and organized crime might be a good start). [1]https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pelosi-schumer-contagion-11585006077 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pelosi-schumer-contagion-11... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty [3]https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/coronavirus-trading-house-senate-140260 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/coronavirus-trading... [4]https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

x0x0 7y ago

The role of the federal government is to be our insurer and to eat risk. Unlike state governments, there is no balanced budget requirement. Blaming Cuomo -- ie all 50 individual states, with not only currently varying populations, but populations and incomes and risks that vary over time -- for not independently staffing up and buying equipment to be prepared against all eventualities is silly. Second, Trump diddled for 8-12 weeks to start manufacturing things. People are screaming because the Chinese government confirmed by Dec 31 that they had cases of the virus. That means the NSA had almost certainly been hearing about it for a couple weeks. Given the worlds' experience with SARS and MERS, that was the time to get serious. What was possible with this warning? Taiwan, for example, used this time to create 32 new production lines [1] for masks. Later, there were classified briefings that Republicans like Senator Burr were privately warning businesses about. While lying to the public and using the warning period not to get serious about dealing with the pandemic but to save money. We had 8-12 weeks of warning, and Trump either took no serious action or deliberately delayed decisive action to start figuring out supply lines of respirators or ventilators. We had, to use your phrase, "MONTHS" -- actually a quarter of a year -- and Trump squandered them. He invoked the Defense Production Act YESTERDAY for god's sake. The time to do that was when it became clear containment had failed. Ie sometime around mid-January. ps -- we make plenty of stuff in the US. in reality, the US is the second largest manufacturer in the world after China. That's not to say that manufacturing isn't declining in the united states, but to pretend the enormous set of US manufacturers doesn't exist is not grounded in facts. See also BLS 51-4111 -- 72k employed in the US in tool & die manufacturing. [1] https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202003230016 https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202003230016

nocorpwelfare 7y ago

All correct. Also, Snowflakes think the country can run all shut down, but not if you want food on your table. We have to get back going, take our hits, and survive. The alternative is worse.