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That 1% seemed kinda off to me. The original article is kinda weird: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/can-government-play-moneyball/309389/

That 1% seemed kinda off to me. The original article is kinda weird: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/can-government-play-moneyball/309389/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/can-gov... One example they cite is healthcare being more then 50% spent in treatments that don’t work. But they don’t say it is Medicare and Medicaid treatments. Even if it is Medicare+Medicaid alone is 38% of the budget, so it sounds like at least 14% or so is effective rather than just 1%.

qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
Sure, but the sad thing to me here is that no one even seems to care much about this. Note these articles are both from over 5 years ago. We aren't even capable of having that level of discussion nowadays. Our federal government is projected to spend $5.8 trillion in 2021 alone. The entire Gates fortune is $124 billion. And yet Gates probably does more for the world's poorest -- the federal government is overwhelmingly focused on serving Americans -- globally speaking, mostly wealthy white people: https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i What good is being done with that $5.8 trillion exactly? Is the federal government with its military interventionism, agricultural subsidies, etc. really doing 1000x as much good annually as the Gates Foundation? (The annual budget of the Gates Foundation is around 0.1% as large, at around $5 billion.) The failed F-35 stealth fighter project alone has a total cost estimated at $1.7 trillion. Note that this has received almost no coverage. Defense contractors milk the federal government like there's no tomorrow and it doesn't get any attention because mentioning it doesn't serve either party's political goals. Suppose we hypothetically took the entire Gates fortune and added it to the federal budget, so the government spends $5.9 trillion this year instead of $5.8 trillion. Would you even notice? How would you expect the $5.9 trillion budget world to be different from a $5.8 trillion budget world? I'm pretty sure that people in developing countries will miss the work done by the Gates Foundation a heck of a lot more than already-wealthy Americans will appreciate another $0.1 trillion in the federal budget. Using evidence to focus on the most effective possible programs for helping the world's poorest goes a long way, and unfortunately the vast majority of the federal government's spending is not that. Increasing taxes on rich people isn't gonna change that. Before plowing more money into ineffective federal spending, we should first make it effective. "It's ok to waste trillions, the important thing is for us to feel really egalitarian about it"

qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago

Sure, but the sad thing to me here is that no one even seems to care much about this. Note these articles are both from over 5 years ago. We aren't even capable of having that level of discussion nowadays. Our federal government is projected to spend $5.8 trillion in 2021 alone. The entire Gates fortune is $124 billion. And yet Gates probably does more for the world's poorest -- the federal government is overwhelmingly focused on serving Americans -- globally speaking, mostly wealthy white people: https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i What good is being done with that $5.8 trillion exactly? Is the federal government with its military interventionism, agricultural subsidies, etc. really doing 1000x as much good annually as the Gates Foundation? (The annual budget of the Gates Foundation is around 0.1% as large, at around $5 billion.) The failed F-35 stealth fighter project alone has a total cost estimated at $1.7 trillion. Note that this has received almost no coverage. Defense contractors milk the federal government like there's no tomorrow and it doesn't get any attention because mentioning it doesn't serve either party's political goals. Suppose we hypothetically took the entire Gates fortune and added it to the federal budget, so the government spends $5.9 trillion this year instead of $5.8 trillion. Would you even notice? How would you expect the $5.9 trillion budget world to be different from a $5.8 trillion budget world? I'm pretty sure that people in developing countries will miss the work done by the Gates Foundation a heck of a lot more than already-wealthy Americans will appreciate another $0.1 trillion in the federal budget. Using evidence to focus on the most effective possible programs for helping the world's poorest goes a long way, and unfortunately the vast majority of the federal government's spending is not that. Increasing taxes on rich people isn't gonna change that. Before plowing more money into ineffective federal spending, we should first make it effective. "It's ok to waste trillions, the important thing is for us to feel really egalitarian about it"