4 ms·

It need not be that extreme… what with the theft and confiscation of property, etc. A much milder, and more sensible, expression of your underlying sentiment i

by rsync 1y ago

It need not be that extreme… what with the theft and confiscation of property, etc. A much milder, and more sensible, expression of your underlying sentiment is: If an activity becomes this essential, the government should provide a competitive entrant in the same field. Now the incumbent provider has competition, and there is a market participant tied to other incentives, etc. No theft necessary.

thewebguyd 1y ago
> If an activity becomes this essential, the government should provide a competitive entrant in the same field. I'll admit I didn't even think of that, and yeah I'd agree that's a good solution worth pursuing in cases like this. I can think of many industries where we need to inject competition into the market.
harrisi 1y ago
I don't understand how this would work. If the government created some entity to handle processing payments (or whatever), I assume it would be a publicly funded non-profit, since there is precedent for that. How much funding does it get? Where does that money come from? How does it compete with the existing massively powerful corporations? What incentives does the government entity have to compete? What happens if it goes bankrupt or is purchased? What happens to whatever capital was used to fund it? It just seems like the government entity would need to actively engage with seeking profits or just existing to artificially lower costs. I don't think the majority of people would want the government to have a for-profit arm that exists to compete with businesses, and I don't think corporations would just play nice. I'd say that USPS is the closest example of this, and it's a pretty good example of how things can go wrong as well. The active attack against the postal service to try to privatize it is terrible. It will do nothing but continue to isolate power to the ultra wealthy and make people's lives worse. For-profit corporations and the government just have (or ought to have) fundamentally different incentives to exist. I'd be curious to know of any examples of this working well. I don't mean to be so antagonistic, I just am really struggling to understand how this could work in any way.
- rsync 1y ago
  These are all fantastic and interesting questions and are exactly the same questions you would face if you expropriated the property of the businesses my parent proposed privatizing. The issue is not how complicated and difficult such an endeavor is (and you rightly identify it as such). The issue is, if we're going to do this heavy lifting anyway, might we do it in a way that doesn't involve theft ?
  - Jensson 1y ago
    > The issue is, if we're going to do this heavy lifting anyway, might we do it in a way that doesn't involve theft ? Expropriation usually involves paying the owners so it isn't theft, its just the government buying out the stocks just like a private corporation would. Are you saying Elon musk stole twitter? That is the same thing. Anyway, here since this is shared between countries its better to just regulate what these processors can do, like the EU does when they regulate how large payment processing fees can be etc. Since its used for international trade no single country can own it.
    - rsync 1y ago
      "Are you saying Elon musk stole twitter? That is the same thing." It's not at all the same thing. Twitter could have said no.
meowky 1y ago
The problem: what if the government fails to provide a competitive entrant? We must NOT expect the government to excel at anything. We must assume it is, and will always be, a mediocre follower of established playbooks. To ensure the government accomplishes X, we must stress in the playbook that X is mandated and cannot be compromised in any way. You cannot mandate competitiveness.
ndkap 1y ago
Agreed. When people say that we need to privatize something because the government is not doing its job effectively, I always think that the government is not doing its job effectively because of the lack of competition. If you just replace the governmental entity with a private entity, then you would end up with more problems than before. The better way to approach this would be to create a governmental entity that competes with the private sector. Each can keep the other in check with competition. For example, in the case of tax prep in the US, the government can set up a competing entity that makes the tax prep software and keep turbo tax in check.
autoexec 1y ago
> If an activity becomes this essential, the government should provide a competitive entrant in the same field. I'd agree, although considering our nation's decline into an authoritarian state I wouldn't trust a government competitor to be any better about protecting artistic works from censorship. Project 2025 makes the administration's feelings on this topic pretty clear.

by rsync 1y ago

thewebguyd 1y ago

> If an activity becomes this essential, the government should provide a competitive entrant in the same field. I'll admit I didn't even think of that, and yeah I'd agree that's a good solution worth pursuing in cases like this. I can think of many industries where we need to inject competition into the market.

harrisi 1y ago

I don't understand how this would work. If the government created some entity to handle processing payments (or whatever), I assume it would be a publicly funded non-profit, since there is precedent for that. How much funding does it get? Where does that money come from? How does it compete with the existing massively powerful corporations? What incentives does the government entity have to compete? What happens if it goes bankrupt or is purchased? What happens to whatever capital was used to fund it? It just seems like the government entity would need to actively engage with seeking profits or just existing to artificially lower costs. I don't think the majority of people would want the government to have a for-profit arm that exists to compete with businesses, and I don't think corporations would just play nice. I'd say that USPS is the closest example of this, and it's a pretty good example of how things can go wrong as well. The active attack against the postal service to try to privatize it is terrible. It will do nothing but continue to isolate power to the ultra wealthy and make people's lives worse. For-profit corporations and the government just have (or ought to have) fundamentally different incentives to exist. I'd be curious to know of any examples of this working well. I don't mean to be so antagonistic, I just am really struggling to understand how this could work in any way.

rsync 1y ago
These are all fantastic and interesting questions and are exactly the same questions you would face if you expropriated the property of the businesses my parent proposed privatizing. The issue is not how complicated and difficult such an endeavor is (and you rightly identify it as such). The issue is, if we're going to do this heavy lifting anyway, might we do it in a way that doesn't involve theft ?
- Jensson 1y ago
  > The issue is, if we're going to do this heavy lifting anyway, might we do it in a way that doesn't involve theft ? Expropriation usually involves paying the owners so it isn't theft, its just the government buying out the stocks just like a private corporation would. Are you saying Elon musk stole twitter? That is the same thing. Anyway, here since this is shared between countries its better to just regulate what these processors can do, like the EU does when they regulate how large payment processing fees can be etc. Since its used for international trade no single country can own it.
  - rsync 1y ago
    "Are you saying Elon musk stole twitter? That is the same thing." It's not at all the same thing. Twitter could have said no.

meowky 1y ago

The problem: what if the government fails to provide a competitive entrant? We must NOT expect the government to excel at anything. We must assume it is, and will always be, a mediocre follower of established playbooks. To ensure the government accomplishes X, we must stress in the playbook that X is mandated and cannot be compromised in any way. You cannot mandate competitiveness.

ndkap 1y ago

Agreed. When people say that we need to privatize something because the government is not doing its job effectively, I always think that the government is not doing its job effectively because of the lack of competition. If you just replace the governmental entity with a private entity, then you would end up with more problems than before. The better way to approach this would be to create a governmental entity that competes with the private sector. Each can keep the other in check with competition. For example, in the case of tax prep in the US, the government can set up a competing entity that makes the tax prep software and keep turbo tax in check.

autoexec 1y ago

> If an activity becomes this essential, the government should provide a competitive entrant in the same field. I'd agree, although considering our nation's decline into an authoritarian state I wouldn't trust a government competitor to be any better about protecting artistic works from censorship. Project 2025 makes the administration's feelings on this topic pretty clear.