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> It should be an expected price of public service that you remove yourself from most other ambitions. Countries like Singapore already figured out that if you

> It should be an expected price of public service that you remove yourself from most other ambitions. Countries like Singapore already figured out that if you pay public servants very well you can attract high quality people to government jobs. If you make part of the job requirements that you sacrifice your retirement and financial well being for the good of the country you’re just targeting a type of politician you wish existed, not real people. > I'd hope that if they were required to live off of their (rapidly depreciating) savings and income The problem with your line of thinking is that “they” is not a fixed set of candidates. If you forced them to have “rapidly depreciating” financial states to take the job, you’d lose a lot of candidates. I know you’d like to imagine they’d be replaced by perfect utopian candidates who only have your best interests in mind, but in reality if you make people financially desperate they’re actually more likely to look for ways to commit fraud for self-benefit. Imagine the desperate lawmaker watching their family’s retirement “rapidly depreciate” who gets a visit from a lobbyist who can get their kid a sweet $200K/yr do-nothing job if they can just slip a little amendment into a law. The populist movement to punish lawmakers is self-defeating.

ekianjo 1y ago
> Countries like Singapore already figured out that if you pay public servants very well So insider trading is not a thing among Singapore's ruling class?
- toephu2 1y ago
  Singapore pays its public officials high salaries primarily to ensure the integrity and quality of its government. The official justification centers on attracting top talent who could otherwise command high incomes in the private sector, thereby establishing a "clean wage" that reduces the financial incentive for corruption. Salaries are explicitly benchmarked to the median income of the nation's highest earners. e.g., Singapore PM annual salary: ~$1.63 million USD Singapore President salary: ~$1.14 million USD
  - danny_codes 11mo ago
    This makes so much sense to me. If the public sector is compensated the same or slightly better than the public, then naturally we’d attract the best people to the public sector. Personally I never considered a career in the public sector mostly because there is an expectation in my country (US) that I would be poorly compensated.
  - throwaway2037 11mo ago
    To be clear, the Sing president has essentially no power -- it is a figurehead, mostly. It is a parliamentary system.
thaumasiotes 1y ago
Compare the observation that in superhero comics, wealthy villains can be self-made, while wealthy heroes invariably get that way through inheritance. The only acceptable leader is someone who was born so rich that he leads as a hobby.
- delecti 1y ago
  That strategy is pretty hit or miss though. Sure we've got Kennedy or FDR, but we've also got Bush and Trump.
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    I'm not saying that's a useful thing to believe. I'm saying that's what people do believe.
- InitialLastName 1y ago
  Alternately: Self-made wealth is so frequently derived from evil that those who are born rich and come good owe penance for the sins of their forebears.
greedo 1y ago
Nebraska has a unicameral legislature that isn't in session year round. Pay is $12k/year (with travel per diem). This low salary leads to an older cohort of senators, either retired or wealthy enough to work part time. This low salary completely neuters the ability of younger people to enter state politics until they've amassed enough money to survive for four years.
Tempest1981 1y ago
> requirements that you sacrifice your retirement and financial well being Holding index funds seems reasonable (Total Stock Market, S&P 500)... not a huge sacrifice imo
- maerF0x0 1y ago
  Definitely prefer something like Total market, even 500 companies is too much of a bias towards one group. Especially with the S&P500 currently looking like an S&P10...
- sidrag22 1y ago
  this feels like a no brainer solution, but just seems like a wonderful wishlist that won't happen, ive heard it a lot. I am wondering why i don't hear anything like: if a church or group representing a church get involved with politics, through lobbying or any other type of means, their tax free status is revoked and they are treated like a normal entity. it seems like a similar type of thing that in my eyes at least, is a no brainer, but is just as likely to be chopped down because of how our current system functions.
HighGoldstein 1y ago
> Countries like Singapore already figured out that if you pay public servants very well you can attract high quality people to government jobs. I see this argument a lot, but I think it treats people as uniform input-output machines. Singapore is successful in this regard because of much more severe and very real penalties for corruption, and because not "everyone does this". You can't bribe immoral people into behaving morally, because in the absence of morals they have no incentive not to just take your bribe and keep doing what they're doing. A significant number of corrupt public "servants" are multi-millionaires, no amount of money will ever be enough for them.
IgorPartola 1y ago
Or we can recruit lawmakers how we choose juries: randomly. Every two years we randomly select 435 individuals to serve in the House and 100 random people for the Senate. We pay them well, and they pass a basic literacy test. No money in politics, no parties. You have to for a coalition to govern. One objection could be this: but what if we hire unqualified people. The counterargument: do you think are current legislators are more or less qualified than an average person? Another objection: but what if they don’t want to do it? Counterargument: when a juror does not want to be on a case, they are almost always dismissed from it. Doesn’t mean you get to skip jury duty, just that you don’t get to do that one. One last one: this will disrupt those people’s lives. Counter argument: what Congress is and isn’t doing right now is disrupting everyone’s lives as are lobbyists and special interest groups. Something similar has been done in Ireland with their assemblies. And I do think that if you cannot convince 535 randomly selected average citizens that a law should be passed, that law is probably not worth passing. Democracy is a terrible form of government. It’s just that it is about 5x better than anything else we have invented so far. Doesn’t mean we should stop looking for a better system.
- ragebol 1y ago
  Sounds very interesting, but one more counter-points I'd like to see counter-countered: These random people will have to rely on experts a lot for knowledge they lack on any topic, because the world is complex. Now, these experts can be biased, bought, influenced etc. Or be accused of being in some sort of "Deep State" if you're into that. But then again, this can already be the case, now I counter-countered myself.
  - IgorPartola 1y ago
    That’s exactly it: we already have this in the form of the lobby industrial complex. Except it is possibly quite a bit worse because if you stay in Congress for a long time and form a trusting relationship with your lobbyists who by the way also pay to your reelection campaign or support you in other ways, over time you get to accept their expert opinion with less skepticism. If a lobbyist has to start over every 2 years, they can’t sink their teeth as hard into you. And I doubt many congresspeople are experts on most subjects on which they write laws. Some have economics degrees. Some are doctors, some are lawyers. Very few engineers, it seems. If you wanted an alternative system: you could always have a professional group of law writers and a professional group of law opposers try to present arguments to a large assembly of law jurors. If they can’t get 2/3rds majority on a law, it doesn’t pass. This is better than something like direct democracy where everyone votes on an issue because you can’t get the voters’ attention on any one thing for more than a few minutes or a few hours at the most (except a small fraction for whom it is their life for a while). In this law jury setup you can properly brief them. You could have some other body of professional governors who do things like emergency resolutions and maybe basic budget stuff but anything beyond that goes to the assembly for approval. You could create a new assembly as often as every 6 weeks and process a batch of laws at once so that you really rotate out the jurors before they can be influenced. And selection of law writers and law opposers can be something that is reviewed by this kind of assembly too, or just some large pool of professionals who are chosen at random for any given period of time and given the power to present before the assembly. A lot of options here for how to amortize bad behavior such that over the long haul it averages out to close to zero.
charlieyu1 1y ago
Hong Kong already showed that paying public servants well doesn’t stop corruption.
- throwaway2037 11mo ago
  This is untrue. The programme to improve public servant pay started in the 1960s because British businesses were struggling with local corruption. (The Brits didn't do it out of the kindness of their colonizer hearts!) As a result, public servant pay was increased dramatically, then indexed with inflation, to ensure that most public servant roles were middle class and above. This greatly reduced corruption. If you think that having big trials about corruption is a sign that you country has a lot of corruption, I would say just the opposite. Having those big trials is proof that your anti-corruption police force (ICAC) and the court system is working. To be clear, I know if this changing since Hongkong became a single party state in the last few years.
  - throwaway2037 11mo ago
    Edit: To be clear, I don't know if this changed since...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
superxpro12 1y ago
On a similar note, the NHL has a lot of problems with its referee program (they only recruit washed up AHL players with zero passion or experience in officiating), but one thing they seem to get right is that they pay the NHL ref's full time professional salaries up to 250k. Just to ref. With the goal that they're compensated enough to not worry about betting scandals or anything that can ruin the integrity of the game.
akudha 1y ago
Countries like Singapore already figured out that if you pay public servants very well Congressmen get paid 170K/year, get pension after only 5 years (MTG is leaving just after she becomes eligible), plus they only work like 6 months in a year, right? Not sure about healthcare and other benefits. While they can't get rich on this salary, this does seem pretty decent salary and perks, right? How do other democracies solve this problem?
sackfield 1y ago
Countries like Singapore figured out that high reward / high risk (e.g. punishment) is the essence of capitalism and thus retaining talent in the public sector. EDIT: You will notice a lot of talk about high pay. It's important to note that this is not without major punishment for financial mismanagement. You can't have one without the other, it's not just a question of giving politicians a bigger trough to put their snout in.
throwaway2037 11mo ago
> Countries like Singapore already figured out that if you pay public servants very well you can attract high quality people to government jobs. And most highly developed, democratic nations don't pay their highest gov't officials very well. Yet, they continue to attract high quality people. The only "proof" that I can offer: Look at G7 and similarly developed democratic nations (the richest per capita on Earth). If they struggled to attract the best and brightest into gov't, eventually things would decline due to economic mismanagement. Instead: They have not. Those nations have been rich for 50 years and will be rich for many more years into the future because they have high quality people in gov't making effective policy.

ekianjo 1y ago

> Countries like Singapore already figured out that if you pay public servants very well So insider trading is not a thing among Singapore's ruling class?

toephu2 1y ago
Singapore pays its public officials high salaries primarily to ensure the integrity and quality of its government. The official justification centers on attracting top talent who could otherwise command high incomes in the private sector, thereby establishing a "clean wage" that reduces the financial incentive for corruption. Salaries are explicitly benchmarked to the median income of the nation's highest earners. e.g., Singapore PM annual salary: ~$1.63 million USD Singapore President salary: ~$1.14 million USD
- danny_codes 11mo ago
  This makes so much sense to me. If the public sector is compensated the same or slightly better than the public, then naturally we’d attract the best people to the public sector. Personally I never considered a career in the public sector mostly because there is an expectation in my country (US) that I would be poorly compensated.
- throwaway2037 11mo ago
  To be clear, the Sing president has essentially no power -- it is a figurehead, mostly. It is a parliamentary system.

thaumasiotes 1y ago

Compare the observation that in superhero comics, wealthy villains can be self-made, while wealthy heroes invariably get that way through inheritance. The only acceptable leader is someone who was born so rich that he leads as a hobby.

delecti 1y ago
That strategy is pretty hit or miss though. Sure we've got Kennedy or FDR, but we've also got Bush and Trump.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  I'm not saying that's a useful thing to believe. I'm saying that's what people do believe.
InitialLastName 1y ago
Alternately: Self-made wealth is so frequently derived from evil that those who are born rich and come good owe penance for the sins of their forebears.

greedo 1y ago

Nebraska has a unicameral legislature that isn't in session year round. Pay is $12k/year (with travel per diem). This low salary leads to an older cohort of senators, either retired or wealthy enough to work part time. This low salary completely neuters the ability of younger people to enter state politics until they've amassed enough money to survive for four years.

Tempest1981 1y ago

> requirements that you sacrifice your retirement and financial well being Holding index funds seems reasonable (Total Stock Market, S&P 500)... not a huge sacrifice imo

maerF0x0 1y ago
Definitely prefer something like Total market, even 500 companies is too much of a bias towards one group. Especially with the S&P500 currently looking like an S&P10...
sidrag22 1y ago
this feels like a no brainer solution, but just seems like a wonderful wishlist that won't happen, ive heard it a lot. I am wondering why i don't hear anything like: if a church or group representing a church get involved with politics, through lobbying or any other type of means, their tax free status is revoked and they are treated like a normal entity. it seems like a similar type of thing that in my eyes at least, is a no brainer, but is just as likely to be chopped down because of how our current system functions.

HighGoldstein 1y ago

> Countries like Singapore already figured out that if you pay public servants very well you can attract high quality people to government jobs. I see this argument a lot, but I think it treats people as uniform input-output machines. Singapore is successful in this regard because of much more severe and very real penalties for corruption, and because not "everyone does this". You can't bribe immoral people into behaving morally, because in the absence of morals they have no incentive not to just take your bribe and keep doing what they're doing. A significant number of corrupt public "servants" are multi-millionaires, no amount of money will ever be enough for them.

IgorPartola 1y ago

Or we can recruit lawmakers how we choose juries: randomly. Every two years we randomly select 435 individuals to serve in the House and 100 random people for the Senate. We pay them well, and they pass a basic literacy test. No money in politics, no parties. You have to for a coalition to govern. One objection could be this: but what if we hire unqualified people. The counterargument: do you think are current legislators are more or less qualified than an average person? Another objection: but what if they don’t want to do it? Counterargument: when a juror does not want to be on a case, they are almost always dismissed from it. Doesn’t mean you get to skip jury duty, just that you don’t get to do that one. One last one: this will disrupt those people’s lives. Counter argument: what Congress is and isn’t doing right now is disrupting everyone’s lives as are lobbyists and special interest groups. Something similar has been done in Ireland with their assemblies. And I do think that if you cannot convince 535 randomly selected average citizens that a law should be passed, that law is probably not worth passing. Democracy is a terrible form of government. It’s just that it is about 5x better than anything else we have invented so far. Doesn’t mean we should stop looking for a better system.

ragebol 1y ago
Sounds very interesting, but one more counter-points I'd like to see counter-countered: These random people will have to rely on experts a lot for knowledge they lack on any topic, because the world is complex. Now, these experts can be biased, bought, influenced etc. Or be accused of being in some sort of "Deep State" if you're into that. But then again, this can already be the case, now I counter-countered myself.
- IgorPartola 1y ago
  That’s exactly it: we already have this in the form of the lobby industrial complex. Except it is possibly quite a bit worse because if you stay in Congress for a long time and form a trusting relationship with your lobbyists who by the way also pay to your reelection campaign or support you in other ways, over time you get to accept their expert opinion with less skepticism. If a lobbyist has to start over every 2 years, they can’t sink their teeth as hard into you. And I doubt many congresspeople are experts on most subjects on which they write laws. Some have economics degrees. Some are doctors, some are lawyers. Very few engineers, it seems. If you wanted an alternative system: you could always have a professional group of law writers and a professional group of law opposers try to present arguments to a large assembly of law jurors. If they can’t get 2/3rds majority on a law, it doesn’t pass. This is better than something like direct democracy where everyone votes on an issue because you can’t get the voters’ attention on any one thing for more than a few minutes or a few hours at the most (except a small fraction for whom it is their life for a while). In this law jury setup you can properly brief them. You could have some other body of professional governors who do things like emergency resolutions and maybe basic budget stuff but anything beyond that goes to the assembly for approval. You could create a new assembly as often as every 6 weeks and process a batch of laws at once so that you really rotate out the jurors before they can be influenced. And selection of law writers and law opposers can be something that is reviewed by this kind of assembly too, or just some large pool of professionals who are chosen at random for any given period of time and given the power to present before the assembly. A lot of options here for how to amortize bad behavior such that over the long haul it averages out to close to zero.

charlieyu1 1y ago

Hong Kong already showed that paying public servants well doesn’t stop corruption.

throwaway2037 11mo ago
This is untrue. The programme to improve public servant pay started in the 1960s because British businesses were struggling with local corruption. (The Brits didn't do it out of the kindness of their colonizer hearts!) As a result, public servant pay was increased dramatically, then indexed with inflation, to ensure that most public servant roles were middle class and above. This greatly reduced corruption. If you think that having big trials about corruption is a sign that you country has a lot of corruption, I would say just the opposite. Having those big trials is proof that your anti-corruption police force (ICAC) and the court system is working. To be clear, I know if this changing since Hongkong became a single party state in the last few years.
- throwaway2037 11mo ago
  Edit: To be clear, I don't know if this changed since...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

superxpro12 1y ago

On a similar note, the NHL has a lot of problems with its referee program (they only recruit washed up AHL players with zero passion or experience in officiating), but one thing they seem to get right is that they pay the NHL ref's full time professional salaries up to 250k. Just to ref. With the goal that they're compensated enough to not worry about betting scandals or anything that can ruin the integrity of the game.

akudha 1y ago

Countries like Singapore already figured out that if you pay public servants very well Congressmen get paid 170K/year, get pension after only 5 years (MTG is leaving just after she becomes eligible), plus they only work like 6 months in a year, right? Not sure about healthcare and other benefits. While they can't get rich on this salary, this does seem pretty decent salary and perks, right? How do other democracies solve this problem?

sackfield 1y ago

Countries like Singapore figured out that high reward / high risk (e.g. punishment) is the essence of capitalism and thus retaining talent in the public sector. EDIT: You will notice a lot of talk about high pay. It's important to note that this is not without major punishment for financial mismanagement. You can't have one without the other, it's not just a question of giving politicians a bigger trough to put their snout in.

throwaway2037 11mo ago

> Countries like Singapore already figured out that if you pay public servants very well you can attract high quality people to government jobs. And most highly developed, democratic nations don't pay their highest gov't officials very well. Yet, they continue to attract high quality people. The only "proof" that I can offer: Look at G7 and similarly developed democratic nations (the richest per capita on Earth). If they struggled to attract the best and brightest into gov't, eventually things would decline due to economic mismanagement. Instead: They have not. Those nations have been rich for 50 years and will be rich for many more years into the future because they have high quality people in gov't making effective policy.