Would the country be better off if....
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My personal opinion on regulators is that they're overly vilified. Smart, clear (and aspirationaly simple) rules make for a better economy.
Muddled, bloated and un-examined (once implemented) are the problem.
The recent Boeing situation highlights. You need extremely capable regulators - else your industry counterparts know way more than you.
The government has an aversion to paying for talent. 1 extremely acclaimed and accomplished industry leader (worth say $1M a year) is worth more than 20 guys who get paid $50K a year.
I worked on a spectrum auction in a previous life. The company bidding for spectrum had way more sophisticated data and analysis than the regulators.
Back to the topic - the essence of my question was more... would you want your state govt. to be relatively more powerful than the fed?
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Well, the whole state's rights bit has been tried before...
It was shot down...
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You bring up an interesting point. I haven’t learned too much about the civil war.
The catalyst was definitely slavery.
But what was the rank and file Union soldier fighting for?
Were they disgusted by the institution of slavery, angry at their disloyal traitor brethren or just unquestioningly answering the call of their country?
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@xenon said in Would the country be better off if....:
You bring up an interesting point. I haven’t learned too much about the civil war.
The catalyst was definitely slavery.
But what was the rank and file Union soldier fighting for?
Were they disgusted by the institution of slavery, angry at their disloyal traitor brethren or just unquestioningly answering the call of their country?
The average Union soldier was fighting to preserve the Union. The average Confederate was fighting for state's rights, or simply fighting to defend his home. Slavery was a defining issue, but mostly because it represented money and power, IMO.
Civil War history is fascinating, from the slaves in the North not being freed until halfway through the war, the draft riots in New York, the siege at Vicksburg, the fight for The Bloody Angle, where men from both sides climbed over bodies piled six deep to fight each other tooth and nail. Grant, Lee, Sherman, Jackson (my personal favorite), Forrest and Custer, the personalities are larger than life. The Civil War also was the first war in the world featuring much of the technology we take for granted now...Aerial reconnaissance, submarines, steel ships, fast troop movements by mechanization, etc.
I like Shelby Foote's opus and highly recommend it.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
@Jolly said in Would the country be better off if....:
Civil War history is fascinating, from the slaves in the North not being freed until halfway through the war, the draft riots in New York, the siege at Vicksburg, the fight for The Bloody Angle, where men from both sides climbed over bodies piled six deep to fight each other tooth and nail. Grant, Lee, Sherman, Jackson (my personal favorite), Forrest and Custer, the personalities are larger than life. The Civil War also was the first war in the world featuring much of the technology we take for granted now...Aerial reconnaissance, submarines, steel ships, fast troop movements by mechanization, etc.
I like Shelby Foote's opus and highly recommend it.
I recommend reading about Fremont's letters to Lincoln about emancipation for anyone who isn't satisfied with a caricature understanding of the situation. (Lincoln hid behind the law to justify himself, but how he treated West Virginia's secession versus Virginia's pretty much debunks this. Lincoln needed the warm bodies, materials and cash from as many territories as he could sway to win the war, and Fremont's "Hasty Emancipation" would have pissed a lot of them off.)
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@xenon said in Would the country be better off if....:
The government has an aversion to paying for talent. 1 extremely acclaimed and accomplished industry leader (worth say $1M a year) is worth more than 20 guys who get paid $50K a year.
Lee Kwan Yew, who was one of the founding people of Singapore (and who I think was a pretty good guy), saw that a lot of good people did not want to work for the government because they could make so much more in private companies.
So, it was decided that the pay scale of Singaporean government officials would be competitive with private companies. So, for example, if you were the minister of finance, you would make about what the head of a major bank would make. Etc.
They try to counter balance exactly what Xenon is saying above.
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@Rainman said in Would the country be better off if....:
Taiwan Girl, does that mean there is no corruption in Singapore?
Very close to it if not an outright yes. If you get a chance to talk to Singaporeans, you will find that corruption in government is generally not an issue there.
A German organization Transparency International tries to quantify/rank these things and Singapore consistent score/rank very highly, on par with the likes of Finland, Sweden, Switzerland.
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@xenon said in Would the country be better off if....:
My personal opinion on regulators is that they're overly vilified. Smart, clear (and aspirationaly simple) rules make for a better economy.
Muddled, bloated and un-examined (once implemented) are the problem.
The recent Boeing situation highlights. You need extremely capable regulators - else your industry counterparts know way more than you.
The government has an aversion to paying for talent. 1 extremely acclaimed and accomplished industry leader (worth say $1M a year) is worth more than 20 guys who get paid $50K a year.
I worked on a spectrum auction in a previous life. The company bidding for spectrum had way more sophisticated data and analysis than the regulators.
Back to the topic - the essence of my question was more... would you want your state govt. to be relatively more powerful than the fed?
Why pay for talent? If a President makes little or no difference in a nation's economy, why does one talented CEO make a big difference in the economy of a large company?
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@Jolly my position has always been that the economic effect/influence of a President is overstated. Not that there isn’t one.
Key executives and talent can absolutely make a monstrous difference at a company.
Examples: A run of the mill senior engineer at a good tech company in the valley makes a few hundred thousand.
Specific people/engineers who have made the guts of famous software engineering advancements (they’d be household names in SW engineering circles) get paid literally millions.
The design guys at Apple, the go-to-market guys at Oracle, key industrial engineers at Boeing, etc.
There’s some CEOs who gobble bigger companies and digest out their less profitable parts (see Hock Tan at Broadcom). He’s an M&A artist.
There are people who know things. And all the people above are probably may more expensive than the government can pay for (even at a few $M).
But my point is you need people who know enough to be dangerous. And the government pays.
The government employs 2.3M people. I’d be ok with some mega-experts in there.
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@xenon said in Would the country be better off if....:
@Jolly my position has always been that the economic effect/influence of a President is overstated. Not that there isn’t one.
My thoughts also. Thanks Xenon for expressing it how I feel.
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@Axtremus said in Would the country be better off if....:
@Rainman said in Would the country be better off if....:
Taiwan Girl, does that mean there is no corruption in Singapore?
Very close to it if not an outright yes. If you get a chance to talk to Singaporeans, you will find that corruption in government is generally not an issue there.
A German organization Transparency International tries to quantify/rank these things and Singapore consistent score/rank very highly, on par with the likes of Finland, Sweden, Switzerland.
Thanks, Ax! I had no idea there was a map of corruption.
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@xenon said in Would the country be better off if....:
@Jolly my position has always been that the economic effect/influence of a President is overstated. Not that there isn’t one.
Key executives and talent can absolutely make a monstrous difference at a company.
Examples: A run of the mill senior engineer at a good tech company in the valley makes a few hundred thousand.
Specific people/engineers who have made the guts of famous software engineering advancements (they’d be household names in SW engineering circles) get paid literally millions.
The design guys at Apple, the go-to-market guys at Oracle, key industrial engineers at Boeing, etc.
There’s some CEOs who gobble bigger companies and digest out their less profitable parts (see Hock Tan at Broadcom). He’s an M&A artist.
There are people who know things. And all the people above are probably may more expensive than the government can pay for (even at a few $M).
But my point is you need people who know enough to be dangerous. And the government pays.
The government employs 2.3M people. I’d be ok with some mega-experts in there.
So...The President has an effect, eh?
Ok, now that we've determined you're a whore, we're down to haggling price.
Or is that not how the old punchline goes?
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For xenon and TG:
You both seem to think that saying a president has a big effect on the economy means that he personally gets up every morning and works the jobs himself. You both need to step back and try to see the bigger picture.
Presidents can have a HUGE effect on the economy, either good, or bad. It is also possible for a president to have no effect at all. All he has to do to have no effect at all is to do nothing. But the minute a president does something, it has an effect on the economy. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. That depends on what he did. But to just blanket state "presidents have little effect on the economy" is silly.
A president who has no effect on the economy isn't doing anything. The mi Ute he does something, it affects the economy. Just like pushing the gas pedal in a car, how much the car moves depends on how hard he pushes the pedal. Adding lots and lots of regulations on business affects the economy. The more regulations he adds, the more it strangles business. It doesnt mean the president went to each company and cut their revenue, it means he set in motion an action that will cause business profits to trend downward. Remove those regulations and it's like stepping on the gas.
When I see someone say something as silly as "presidents have little effect on the economy" it makes me cringe.
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I don't really think you're in a place to get sensitive about what exactly you did or did not say when your side of the discussion has always been about trying to convince everybody that it's silly to believe president A is better for the economy than president B. All other hand-wavy characterizations of whatever it is you think you're arguing against are straw men. ("A president's effect on the economy is overstated", etc.)
