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I am not great at markets, startups, business ventures, etc. But I feel like these things are broken: * Governments and only governments can and should prepare

I am not great at markets, startups, business ventures, etc. But I feel like these things are broken: * Governments and only governments can and should prepare for national emergencies, because saying Hospitals don't have enough PPE for pandemics is like saying your local farm doesn't have enough stockpile of rice to server the public during a famine/war. Private institutions have no incentives to serve the greater good of the country. * Manufacturing is an industry every nation should invest in. If labor is expensive, the government should subsidize it so that the essential skills to manufacture and the infrastructure to do so remains functional even though market forces tells consumers otherwise. "Made in Switzerland" marketing can only do so much when the T-shirt costs CHF 120 vs. CHF 11.99 on Amazon which is probably made in Bangladesh. I am not saying govt should subsidize T-shirt manf, just trying to make a point. * Dismantle short-term capitalism that exists in the stock market. Public companies should disclose their financials on a yearly basis or even every other year. Capitalism needs to be refactored to orient itself for long-term gains. Also making it illegal to not act in the interest of share holders is an insane law - CEOs should have the ability to put moral, environmental and other concerns in front of their priority list and not just creating value for the shareholders. This whole system is messed up. * Executives sold off their country's soul to China, made a bank, cut corners, fucked consumers and went to the bank laughing. They paid off senators and govt officials, created a greater divide in the income distribution around the world. Limit executive pay for public and private firms. * Reliance on China needs to change, diversify manufacturing supply chain. Just making sanitizer in US doesn't help if 90% of the ingredients are shipped from China.

solotronics 6y ago
I don't think limiting executive pay is the answer, that would punish people who did nothing wrong. It's treason to sell out your country under foreign influence and it should be tried as such. China figured out our weakness is decision makers can be bought or coerced and we don't have the backbone to do anything about it. A good place to start would be enforcing the FARA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_...
dnautics 6y ago
> Private institutions have no incentives to serve the greater good of the country. What are the incentives for government to serve the greater good of the country, specifically, why should government be uniquely qualified to decide what is good for everyone. As the old joke goes, "democracy is the belief that the people know what they want, and they deserve to get it, good and hard". But nobody in the world really lives in a democracy, it's even worse! There's indirection. To believe that governments are qualified to serve the "greater good" is to believe that people are qualified to select people who are good at judging the greater good. And that's not even counting the next layer of indirection. You're really hoping people are qualified to select people (politicians) that select people (unelected bureaucrats) that know what the greater good is. There are many, many cases, when private enterprise (often, but not exclusively, for-profits operating in a nonprofit/goodwill capacity) has been the most effective responder in national emergencies, for example Walmart immediately providing tons of supplies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. There is a wide window of human activity between a selfish money grubbing capitalist firm, and the government.
- pbourke 6y ago
  > What are the incentives for government to serve the greater good of the country "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, >promote the general Welfare<, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." > why should government be uniquely qualified to decide what is good for everyone The government is uniquely qualified to be the actor of last or only resort in a number of situations. > There are many, many cases, when private enterprise (often, but not exclusively, for-profits operating in a nonprofit/goodwill capacity) has been the most effective responder in national emergencies, for example Walmart immediately providing tons of supplies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Indeed we all remember when Walmart's convoy of soldiers arrived at the Superdome to finally open a supply line to the thousands that sheltered there. Or when Walmart's sailors airlifted or floated out 33,000 citizens stranded in floodwaters.
  - 6y ago
petre 6y ago
The US produces lot of corn which is used to make ethanol, a key ingredient in sanitizer. Ethanol is already produced in large quantities in the US because it's used as a biofuel. So sanitizer is a pretty bad example. PPE is quite a different story. The US has got the resources (gas, cellulose), it only needs long term gov't contracts with manufacturers for strategic stockpiles. It's not black and white and you don't need to become a socialist society.
- shoo 6y ago
  Bit of a tangent: > The US produces lot of corn which is used to make ethanol > Ethanol is already produced in large quantities in the US because it's used as a biofuel Isn't it kind of the other way round? Ethanol is produced from corn in large quantities because of government support requiring that more ethanol be used than the market would independently want, because of the political power of the subset of the US that grows a lot of corn. I.e. oversupply of corn -> regulation to create artificially large market demand for corn+derived biofuel.
  - petre 6y ago
    The EU also mandates use of ethanol in gasoline so no, it's not the other way around. Ethanol production in the US is not necessarily aligned with states mandating its use as fuel. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_S...

solotronics 6y ago

I don't think limiting executive pay is the answer, that would punish people who did nothing wrong. It's treason to sell out your country under foreign influence and it should be tried as such. China figured out our weakness is decision makers can be bought or coerced and we don't have the backbone to do anything about it. A good place to start would be enforcing the FARA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_...

dnautics 6y ago

> Private institutions have no incentives to serve the greater good of the country. What are the incentives for government to serve the greater good of the country, specifically, why should government be uniquely qualified to decide what is good for everyone. As the old joke goes, "democracy is the belief that the people know what they want, and they deserve to get it, good and hard". But nobody in the world really lives in a democracy, it's even worse! There's indirection. To believe that governments are qualified to serve the "greater good" is to believe that people are qualified to select people who are good at judging the greater good. And that's not even counting the next layer of indirection. You're really hoping people are qualified to select people (politicians) that select people (unelected bureaucrats) that know what the greater good is. There are many, many cases, when private enterprise (often, but not exclusively, for-profits operating in a nonprofit/goodwill capacity) has been the most effective responder in national emergencies, for example Walmart immediately providing tons of supplies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. There is a wide window of human activity between a selfish money grubbing capitalist firm, and the government.

pbourke 6y ago
> What are the incentives for government to serve the greater good of the country "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, >promote the general Welfare<, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." > why should government be uniquely qualified to decide what is good for everyone The government is uniquely qualified to be the actor of last or only resort in a number of situations. > There are many, many cases, when private enterprise (often, but not exclusively, for-profits operating in a nonprofit/goodwill capacity) has been the most effective responder in national emergencies, for example Walmart immediately providing tons of supplies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Indeed we all remember when Walmart's convoy of soldiers arrived at the Superdome to finally open a supply line to the thousands that sheltered there. Or when Walmart's sailors airlifted or floated out 33,000 citizens stranded in floodwaters.
- 6y ago

petre 6y ago

The US produces lot of corn which is used to make ethanol, a key ingredient in sanitizer. Ethanol is already produced in large quantities in the US because it's used as a biofuel. So sanitizer is a pretty bad example. PPE is quite a different story. The US has got the resources (gas, cellulose), it only needs long term gov't contracts with manufacturers for strategic stockpiles. It's not black and white and you don't need to become a socialist society.

shoo 6y ago
Bit of a tangent: > The US produces lot of corn which is used to make ethanol > Ethanol is already produced in large quantities in the US because it's used as a biofuel Isn't it kind of the other way round? Ethanol is produced from corn in large quantities because of government support requiring that more ethanol be used than the market would independently want, because of the political power of the subset of the US that grows a lot of corn. I.e. oversupply of corn -> regulation to create artificially large market demand for corn+derived biofuel.
- petre 6y ago
  The EU also mandates use of ethanol in gasoline so no, it's not the other way around. Ethanol production in the US is not necessarily aligned with states mandating its use as fuel. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_S...