4 ms·

It reads to me like it did OK until we cut the funding that made it work.

by corrral 4y ago

missedthecue 4y ago
If you have to ban competition and send them taxpayer money, maybe that's a sign from god.
- corrral 4y ago
  It's a sign that... national security is at odds with market efficiency. Of course doing things less efficiently costs money, and if you don't spend that money, it doesn't get done. [EDIT] To be clear, I don't have a strong opinion on whether it remains a good idea to keep this act around.
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    There is no limit to inefficiency. Maintaining entrenched corporatist monopolies via corrupt regulatory capture is long run much worse for national security.
    - corrral 4y ago
      This is a pretty extreme position. That some inefficiency is necessary for national security reasons is about as close to settled as anything gets in economics/political-economy, though there's plenty of room to disagree over how much.
      - cjbgkagh 4y ago
        Inefficiencies beget inefficiencies. The money gained by those who benefit from the inefficiencies will be reinvested into developing more inefficiencies. Maintaining an efficient system requires constant vigilance. The US is a precarious hegemon, for all of the inefficiency it has invested into the MIC it doesn’t seemed to have gained very much.
- munificent 4y ago
  Only if your God is capitalism. Not everything is about maximizing profitability. Efficient markets are pretty good at optimizing around steady-state systems, but they are profoundly bad at maintaining readiness for cataclysmic events. Yet cataclysmic events happen and we are obliged to prepare for them. If we let corporations run everything, they'd sell of our medical stockpiles, build levees exactly one inch above the waterline, and sell all of our weapons to the highest bidder.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    > If we let corporations run everything, they'd sell of our medical stockpiles, build levees exactly one inch above the waterline, and sell all of our weapons to the highest bidder. I can’t tell if these were intended to be examples of things that have happened? Capitalism is indeed the god, and the atheists and fence sitters find it a bit depressing.

It reads to me like it did OK until we cut the funding that made it work.

missedthecue 4y ago

If you have to ban competition and send them taxpayer money, maybe that's a sign from god.

corrral 4y ago
It's a sign that... national security is at odds with market efficiency. Of course doing things less efficiently costs money, and if you don't spend that money, it doesn't get done. [EDIT] To be clear, I don't have a strong opinion on whether it remains a good idea to keep this act around.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  There is no limit to inefficiency. Maintaining entrenched corporatist monopolies via corrupt regulatory capture is long run much worse for national security.
  - corrral 4y ago
    This is a pretty extreme position. That some inefficiency is necessary for national security reasons is about as close to settled as anything gets in economics/political-economy, though there's plenty of room to disagree over how much.
    - cjbgkagh 4y ago
      Inefficiencies beget inefficiencies. The money gained by those who benefit from the inefficiencies will be reinvested into developing more inefficiencies. Maintaining an efficient system requires constant vigilance. The US is a precarious hegemon, for all of the inefficiency it has invested into the MIC it doesn’t seemed to have gained very much.
munificent 4y ago
Only if your God is capitalism. Not everything is about maximizing profitability. Efficient markets are pretty good at optimizing around steady-state systems, but they are profoundly bad at maintaining readiness for cataclysmic events. Yet cataclysmic events happen and we are obliged to prepare for them. If we let corporations run everything, they'd sell of our medical stockpiles, build levees exactly one inch above the waterline, and sell all of our weapons to the highest bidder.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  > If we let corporations run everything, they'd sell of our medical stockpiles, build levees exactly one inch above the waterline, and sell all of our weapons to the highest bidder. I can’t tell if these were intended to be examples of things that have happened? Capitalism is indeed the god, and the atheists and fence sitters find it a bit depressing.