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You're talking around what they're doing. Yes I agree with all those things you're saying but they're not contrary to what I'm saying. You agree efficiency wou

You're talking around what they're doing. Yes I agree with all those things you're saying but they're not contrary to what I'm saying. You agree efficiency would be good, but as I say this is not what the government is doing, blunt cuts to everything is not efficiency. Yes competitive markets could be better but this is not the case here. As I say you could rely on some benevolent oligarch to pay the dividend down but that's not guaranteed. The proposed tax cuts are for the richest not the average person, they're also "less competitive", part of government is regulating the market to ensure it remains competitive as it's naturally not. Their actions so far are anti-competitive such as the removal of the CFPB which levels the playing field. The government also funds crucial high risk, low reward activities that are necessary to drive growth elsewhere (economic multipliers), they've made it clear they intend cutting these, such as cutting scientific research funding that wouldn't have been investigated otherwise. Overall they are currently not doing anything that you mention.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> You agree efficiency would be good, but as I say this is not what the government is doing, blunt cuts to everything is not efficiency But now you're talking about an entirely different question. The original question was, should wasteful spending be cut in order to lower taxes? Now you're asking if the spending they're cutting is the wasteful spending. Even if the answer to that question is no, the solution would still be to cut the wasteful things instead of the worthwhile things, rather than to not reduce waste. > Yes competitive markets could be better but this is not the case here. Markets become uncompetitive as a result of the regulatory environment, via two primary pathways. First, regulations exist that raise barriers to entry. Then the incumbents don't even have to do anything, they can just be terrible because it's too expensive for anyone else to enter the market to challenge them. Second, a lack of antitrust enforcement. A couple of conglomerates buy the only two suppliers of some important component in the supply chain, are allowed to do this, and then leverage that into a vertically integrated market before someone else can spin up a new competitor, at which point the vertically integrated supply chains act as a barrier to entry and you have the same problem. In the first case you have to get rid of the rules making it too expensive to create new competitors, which is one of the things being proposed. In the second case you have to break up the concentrated markets, which is another thing they're ostensibly doing (e.g. wanting Google to divest Chrome), though it would be more effective if the enforcement actions were more comprehensive, e.g. they should be divesting Android and no company should be running both a mobile OS and an app store. > The proposed tax cuts are for the richest not the average person The proposed tax cuts are approximately across-the-board. If you lower everyone's taxes by the same percentage, that percentage of $400,000 will be more than the same percentage of $40,000, so then people looking for a reason to object will compare the absolute dollar amounts rather than the percentages and feign shock that this is how taxes work. Meanwhile tax incidence is complicated and who is nominally paying a tax and who is actually paying it are two different things, so that kind of comparison doesn't tell you much regardless. > part of government is regulating the market to ensure it remains competitive as it's naturally not. Corporations don't exist in a state of nature. There would be nothing to enforce their contracts or claims to property. Monopolization is always through the use of government rules. The government does need to ensure that its rules don't facilitate monopolization, but that's often best by having fewer of them rather than more. Competitors appear whenever there is nothing inhibiting them. Notice that one of the best anti-trust rules is to make contracts that restrain competition unenforceable, i.e. have the government not do something. > Their actions so far are anti-competitive such as the removal of the CFPB which levels the playing field. CFPB was never an anti-trust agency. Its existence is controversial because it was an attempt to insulate the administrative bureaucracy from the political process. But that tends to do the opposite of an anti-trust agency: Adopt rules that prohibit an unpopular practice without considering why it was happening, e.g. because it was a trade off against the bank not making those loans to begin with. Then fewer banks offer those loans and the people who need those loans end up paying higher interest rates or being forced into some worse situation because they e.g. have to pay $1000 to rent a car for a month because they couldn't get a car loan. > The government also funds crucial high risk, low reward activities that are necessary to drive growth elsewhere (economic multipliers), they've made it clear they intend cutting these, such as cutting scientific research funding that wouldn't have been investigated otherwise. This is a category of research, some of which is worthwhile and some isn't. It's quite plausible that a lot of money currently being spent on "research" is misallocated. > Overall they are currently not doing anything that you mention. What they're doing right now is investigating how the money is being spent, with some level of "stop doing things for a minute until we figure out if we should be doing them". To long-term reallocate it requires the Congressional budget process, which hasn't happened yet, and will ideally be happening with the benefit of more time and information.
- KoolKat23 2y ago
  You're getting caught up in the noise, as I say take a step back. Theoretically what you say makes sense but again my argument is this is not the reality. For every single one of those points. The whole inefficiency argument is futile if it's just a ruse to cut bluntly. Your point on the CFPB is moot, anti-trust and regulation are two sides of the same coin, the point is to level the playing field. It ensures consumers are treated fairly. Anti-trust law and evenly applied consumer law means there isn't captured supply or captured demand. It is possible some of the budget is missallocated, but again practically (by your own admission) some of the correctly allocated budget is being cancelled. This is not how government is intended to work, there are checks and balances intentionally. You cannot cut off and investigate, you investigate then cut off or else this process can be abused. The current evidence already indicates this may not be in good faith (see Verizon contract cancellation). The court is already blocking many of these actions. You're being very generous to them, a good analogy they have catchy marketing materials with great use of jargon and theoretical whitepapers, but client experience with the product is very different.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > The whole inefficiency argument is futile if it's just a ruse to cut bluntly. Not necessarily. Suppose you have a slew of programs and 50% of them aren't worthwhile. You cut all of them. This is bad in the sense that the other 50% of them were worthwhile, but the net effect of this is actually zero because eliminating the benefit of the good half is canceled by eliminating the losses from the bad half. Meanwhile the good programs get reintroduced again over time, if they can be justified. But then they have to go through the process again and get subject to a reevaluation that they wouldn't if they all just continued on through inertia, which allows the bad ones to be filtered out. Then the short-term result is a wash and the long-term result is net positive because the worthwhile programs come back and the unjustifiable ones get filtered out. This becomes net positive not just over time but immediately if you can produce even a slight bias toward removing net-negative programs over net-positive ones. > Your point on the CFPB is moot, anti-trust and regulation are two sides of the same coin, the point is to level the playing field. "Level the playing field" means that each competitor is on equal footing, instead of rules that e.g. favor incumbents or larger companies. Most "consumer protection" laws like that are actually either Faustian bargains or bad trade offs with high memetic fitness. The rule sounds good because it's presented as a free lunch rather than a trade off against an undisclosed cost. This is a Faustian bargain when it's an attempt to mitigate the consequences of an uncompetitive market without actually restoring competitiveness, because leaving the market uncompetitive is going to cause the consumer to get screwed in a hundred other ways regardless of what rule you pass. In that case you need to restore competitiveness rather than trying to mitigate uncompetitiveness. The mitigation -- purposely -- erodes support for the actual solution by making the abuses just tolerable enough to stymie a revolt, while still being worse than the actual solution. It's a bad trade off when the market is competitive, companies are offering both alternatives and some consumers are willingly choosing that option because of some countervailing benefit like lower prices or better interest rates. The market was already providing both alternatives and some consumers were willingly, purposely choosing that option for a reason, so prohibiting it is a harm. > This is not how government is intended to work, there are checks and balances intentionally. You cannot cut off and investigate, you investigate then cut off or else this process can be abused. Checks and balances are generally about preventing the government from doing something unless there is broad consensus, because the government is a monumentally dangerous beast and having it do nothing is far less dangerous than having it do something bad. "A major part of the government doesn't want to do this, therefore it doesn't happen" is checks and balances. > The current evidence already indicates this may not be in good faith (see Verizon contract cancellation). There is obviously a potential conflict of interest when the government changes suppliers and the new supplier is associated with a government official, but that isn't the end of the investigation. The next question is, what are the terms? Is the government paying Starlink more or less than they were paying Verizon? If it's more, now you have a real objection. If it's not more, what's the problem? In that case they would be saving the taxpayer money, which is what they're supposed to be doing. > You're being very generous to them, a good analogy they have catchy marketing materials with great use of jargon and theoretical whitepapers, but client experience with the product is very different. They're humans. Humans are imperfect and reality is complicated. A lot of people want them to fail, which is ridiculous. Let them succeed if they can manage it. Maybe they won't, but they're the ones who won the last election so they're the ones who get to make the attempt right now.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

> You agree efficiency would be good, but as I say this is not what the government is doing, blunt cuts to everything is not efficiency But now you're talking about an entirely different question. The original question was, should wasteful spending be cut in order to lower taxes? Now you're asking if the spending they're cutting is the wasteful spending. Even if the answer to that question is no, the solution would still be to cut the wasteful things instead of the worthwhile things, rather than to not reduce waste. > Yes competitive markets could be better but this is not the case here. Markets become uncompetitive as a result of the regulatory environment, via two primary pathways. First, regulations exist that raise barriers to entry. Then the incumbents don't even have to do anything, they can just be terrible because it's too expensive for anyone else to enter the market to challenge them. Second, a lack of antitrust enforcement. A couple of conglomerates buy the only two suppliers of some important component in the supply chain, are allowed to do this, and then leverage that into a vertically integrated market before someone else can spin up a new competitor, at which point the vertically integrated supply chains act as a barrier to entry and you have the same problem. In the first case you have to get rid of the rules making it too expensive to create new competitors, which is one of the things being proposed. In the second case you have to break up the concentrated markets, which is another thing they're ostensibly doing (e.g. wanting Google to divest Chrome), though it would be more effective if the enforcement actions were more comprehensive, e.g. they should be divesting Android and no company should be running both a mobile OS and an app store. > The proposed tax cuts are for the richest not the average person The proposed tax cuts are approximately across-the-board. If you lower everyone's taxes by the same percentage, that percentage of $400,000 will be more than the same percentage of $40,000, so then people looking for a reason to object will compare the absolute dollar amounts rather than the percentages and feign shock that this is how taxes work. Meanwhile tax incidence is complicated and who is nominally paying a tax and who is actually paying it are two different things, so that kind of comparison doesn't tell you much regardless. > part of government is regulating the market to ensure it remains competitive as it's naturally not. Corporations don't exist in a state of nature. There would be nothing to enforce their contracts or claims to property. Monopolization is always through the use of government rules. The government does need to ensure that its rules don't facilitate monopolization, but that's often best by having fewer of them rather than more. Competitors appear whenever there is nothing inhibiting them. Notice that one of the best anti-trust rules is to make contracts that restrain competition unenforceable, i.e. have the government not do something. > Their actions so far are anti-competitive such as the removal of the CFPB which levels the playing field. CFPB was never an anti-trust agency. Its existence is controversial because it was an attempt to insulate the administrative bureaucracy from the political process. But that tends to do the opposite of an anti-trust agency: Adopt rules that prohibit an unpopular practice without considering why it was happening, e.g. because it was a trade off against the bank not making those loans to begin with. Then fewer banks offer those loans and the people who need those loans end up paying higher interest rates or being forced into some worse situation because they e.g. have to pay $1000 to rent a car for a month because they couldn't get a car loan. > The government also funds crucial high risk, low reward activities that are necessary to drive growth elsewhere (economic multipliers), they've made it clear they intend cutting these, such as cutting scientific research funding that wouldn't have been investigated otherwise. This is a category of research, some of which is worthwhile and some isn't. It's quite plausible that a lot of money currently being spent on "research" is misallocated. > Overall they are currently not doing anything that you mention. What they're doing right now is investigating how the money is being spent, with some level of "stop doing things for a minute until we figure out if we should be doing them". To long-term reallocate it requires the Congressional budget process, which hasn't happened yet, and will ideally be happening with the benefit of more time and information.

KoolKat23 2y ago
You're getting caught up in the noise, as I say take a step back. Theoretically what you say makes sense but again my argument is this is not the reality. For every single one of those points. The whole inefficiency argument is futile if it's just a ruse to cut bluntly. Your point on the CFPB is moot, anti-trust and regulation are two sides of the same coin, the point is to level the playing field. It ensures consumers are treated fairly. Anti-trust law and evenly applied consumer law means there isn't captured supply or captured demand. It is possible some of the budget is missallocated, but again practically (by your own admission) some of the correctly allocated budget is being cancelled. This is not how government is intended to work, there are checks and balances intentionally. You cannot cut off and investigate, you investigate then cut off or else this process can be abused. The current evidence already indicates this may not be in good faith (see Verizon contract cancellation). The court is already blocking many of these actions. You're being very generous to them, a good analogy they have catchy marketing materials with great use of jargon and theoretical whitepapers, but client experience with the product is very different.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > The whole inefficiency argument is futile if it's just a ruse to cut bluntly. Not necessarily. Suppose you have a slew of programs and 50% of them aren't worthwhile. You cut all of them. This is bad in the sense that the other 50% of them were worthwhile, but the net effect of this is actually zero because eliminating the benefit of the good half is canceled by eliminating the losses from the bad half. Meanwhile the good programs get reintroduced again over time, if they can be justified. But then they have to go through the process again and get subject to a reevaluation that they wouldn't if they all just continued on through inertia, which allows the bad ones to be filtered out. Then the short-term result is a wash and the long-term result is net positive because the worthwhile programs come back and the unjustifiable ones get filtered out. This becomes net positive not just over time but immediately if you can produce even a slight bias toward removing net-negative programs over net-positive ones. > Your point on the CFPB is moot, anti-trust and regulation are two sides of the same coin, the point is to level the playing field. "Level the playing field" means that each competitor is on equal footing, instead of rules that e.g. favor incumbents or larger companies. Most "consumer protection" laws like that are actually either Faustian bargains or bad trade offs with high memetic fitness. The rule sounds good because it's presented as a free lunch rather than a trade off against an undisclosed cost. This is a Faustian bargain when it's an attempt to mitigate the consequences of an uncompetitive market without actually restoring competitiveness, because leaving the market uncompetitive is going to cause the consumer to get screwed in a hundred other ways regardless of what rule you pass. In that case you need to restore competitiveness rather than trying to mitigate uncompetitiveness. The mitigation -- purposely -- erodes support for the actual solution by making the abuses just tolerable enough to stymie a revolt, while still being worse than the actual solution. It's a bad trade off when the market is competitive, companies are offering both alternatives and some consumers are willingly choosing that option because of some countervailing benefit like lower prices or better interest rates. The market was already providing both alternatives and some consumers were willingly, purposely choosing that option for a reason, so prohibiting it is a harm. > This is not how government is intended to work, there are checks and balances intentionally. You cannot cut off and investigate, you investigate then cut off or else this process can be abused. Checks and balances are generally about preventing the government from doing something unless there is broad consensus, because the government is a monumentally dangerous beast and having it do nothing is far less dangerous than having it do something bad. "A major part of the government doesn't want to do this, therefore it doesn't happen" is checks and balances. > The current evidence already indicates this may not be in good faith (see Verizon contract cancellation). There is obviously a potential conflict of interest when the government changes suppliers and the new supplier is associated with a government official, but that isn't the end of the investigation. The next question is, what are the terms? Is the government paying Starlink more or less than they were paying Verizon? If it's more, now you have a real objection. If it's not more, what's the problem? In that case they would be saving the taxpayer money, which is what they're supposed to be doing. > You're being very generous to them, a good analogy they have catchy marketing materials with great use of jargon and theoretical whitepapers, but client experience with the product is very different. They're humans. Humans are imperfect and reality is complicated. A lot of people want them to fail, which is ridiculous. Let them succeed if they can manage it. Maybe they won't, but they're the ones who won the last election so they're the ones who get to make the attempt right now.