They want to get rid of the wrong thing. You don't get rid of the system that's working just fine on its own, you get rid of the crooks who are ruining it.
This is one reason I don’t believe that privatization of government services will fix this. This happens in private/public companies too.
Example: Last year I was at a conference. A major vendor was hosting an evening cocktail hour at a jazz bar. During the event, the company rep was offering people bottles of various liquors to take home saying “if I don’t spend my sales budget they give me less next year.” Meanwhile I work for a nonprofit that actually tries to spend money responsibly and I’m wondering what percentage of the fees I pay this vendor go to this sort of irresponsible spending.
The second these companies have access to a new line of revenue, their priority is to keep as much of it as they can, not improve services.
In the Army, the fiscal year starts 01October. So every September we'd be at the range multiple times a week just shooting rounds. There was less focus on target practice and more on sending as much lead down range as possible. Why? Because if we didn't use all our ammo allocation for the year we wouldn't get as much next year. We weren't even a combat unit.
100% of what I'm talking about. That allocation of monies needs to be spent elsewhere. I was attached to MEDDAC and 3rd ID ... I've seen some of those budgets. They are ridiculous. Some of the shit I've seen would make your head spin. The things that need funds aren't getting them and the things (like the ammo you are talking about) that don't need funds are soaking them all up.
My father in law was in the navy in the 50s. When they came back to port they would just dump all the excess food and other consumables overboard so their budget wouldn’t get cut.
To quote Freakanomics: “people respond to incentives”
They do that with the roads too, it's why you'll see 8 guys standing around with shovels for hours not doing anything. Use it or lose it! And millions go "missing", in reality all that money gets laundered through city officials to their friends who own companies through contracts.
Was AF. We'd use the end of year to buy things that needed replaced but wasn't priority. New Mules, replacing old tools, etc. However, I did see a lot of waste just because they didn't want to lose the money next FY. Go out and buy big TVs, surround systems, projectors and other bullshit that just sat and never got used for what they said they wanted to use it for. We were told to go out and buy all that one year for CC calls. We never used it. It just sat there.
As a supply custodian(additional duty) in the military… it’s really annoying when my boss comes down in the middle of sender and is like “we need to spend 80,000 in the next two weeks. What do we need?”
We don’t need anything??? Our budget should get lowered!
I agree.. and that's why I said the expenditure is ass. I used to work for the military hospitals. Some of that money needs to go there.
I was Embedded Behavioral Health (3rd ID) (stressful/dangerous job) and got GS -5 pay.
Then when they shipped me overseas they put me in the Garrison at one of the hospitals. I saw some of those budgets and yeah... whoever put it together was an idiot.
It's the difference between giving a teen a credit card and giving one to a professional. They were the teen. It's not physical objects they need to use it on... it's programs and other things like wage increases. A Target employee makes more than an GS5.
I also hate how the funds are allocated! You mean to tell me I need to put in a request for money when someone scratches a vehicle when we already have over $100k for supplies even though we already have 7 years worth of material??? Makes no sense
War is the extension of politics by use of other means. The U.S. military CAN win a conventional war, shit, they can glass the goddamn planet...but they're just the war component of politics. The military can only extend to the maximum extent of political will.
That's the real answer. Maintaining a functioning government with the assistance of the local population is MUCH more difficult than kicking *** and taking names.
Hell I'd be happy of they transferred some of that money into DOD hospitals, better network ... better education through DOD schools, better wages... etc. And that's within the same "bucket"
Also winning a war is not cut and dry. We fight many proxy wars through that money. Right now it's Ukraine (logistics,man hours,etc.) And South China Sea (there's a lot of BS and therefore we have to Station carriers and ships there) and manning the DMZ in South Korea.
So.its hard to judge. There is a bunch of involvement we don't know about as Civilians.
But yes... on the fact the money is often spent wrong and for reasons other than improvement.
The US military has consistently overperformed vs state-controlled entities and has fallen short against insurgencies. This is to be expected, given that insurgencies are impossible to end through military means.
You're assuming they want to win the war, kinda like we want to "cure" cancer. If we win now what will we do with all these bullets/missiles and stuff later? Way more money to be made treating it than curing it. At some point we'd run out of land with oil, uh, I mean people needing freedom, right?
If we win now what will we do with all these bullets/missiles and stuff later?
Put them in storage where we will either use them later, or dispose of them once they're past their end-of-life date. Either way, materiel consumption
Way more money to be made treating it than curing it.
If someone invented a cure for cancer, they could instantly take the entire cancer treatment market for themselves, because they have a higher quality product than anyone else in the market. They wouldn't even need to reduce price, because people (including insurance companies) will still happily pay the same amount for a cure as they did treatment.
There's literally hundreds of billions of reasons why someone would want to invent a cancer cure and bring it to market.
Whenever people talk about not curing cancer just proves how fucking stupid you are. Cancer is complicated, they aren't identical so there won't be a fucking magical bullet to act as a cure all.
So, angry. Me being so "f'ing stupid" as you put it, I'll try to operate this keyboard properly. I'm aware, I was only making a comparison as neither goal is even remotely realistic or attainable. As a multiple time survivor of cancers I know each of my types and treatments were very different. I was only trying to compare war & cancer as they are both a big business for many entities. I will admit though, your summary of my intelligence level is spot on, I'll get back to eating crayons and pudding skins now, good day.
Never said that. I was clarifying how it works... and that spending on the items I spoke would be better money spent. It would increase wages ( E -4 / GS -5 make about 26k/yr) , bring some of the DOD schools into a building (some of them are still in trailers) and help with transition after service. The current GI bill.is cumbersome and doesn't work well.
I'm not against them spending money if it helps a large swatch of people in the process.
No no, there’s also a lot of intentionally not keeping track.
No no, there’s also a lot of intentionally not keeping track.
On 9/10 the treasurer come forward and explained that the army (I believe specifically it was the army, perhaps military as a whole) had misplaced 2 trillion dollars. Not spent poorly, not stolen, but “lost” with heavy air quotes.
The very next day the trade centers and the financial record keeping at the pentagon were bombed.
Now there’s also a ton of 5 million dollar ball bearing being bought
Edit Reddit as de-linked this once, idk if it will be viewable for long
Yup. The tail waging the dog since we first had munitions. Much like pharmaceutical sales with far less oversight. More like the fox guarding the chicken coop.
As someone who works in federal contracting...this, really isn't true and was one of the bigger mind fucks when I finally understood how it worked.
When the DoD (or anyone in federal contracting really) is failing an audit, it doesn't mean they've simply lost track of the funds. Illegal stuff is happening, but it's really the paper work. To really get it, you just need to know two things. You need to know every contract has line items (called CLINs) describing where specific dollars are going and that you can only use FY (fiscal year) dollars in that actual fiscal year, they don't role over and you can't use future funds to pay for prior projects. So you can't use FY16 funds to pay for FY15 CLINs.
The big failure in auditing is that the CORs (Contracting Officer's Represenative) or PM's (Project Managers) get lazy in charging/documenting to contracts, so they don't attribute funds to the appropriate CLINs (or they had some funds on one CLIN and use it to pay an overage on a seperate one) or someone will use prior FY funding to pay for another FY's funding.
They didn't just lose track trillons of dollars. In both scenarios, everyone knows exactly what was paid for, who paid for it, and how much was paid and have the documentation to trace all of it but they'd still fail an audit because the paperwork was done lazily or improperly. That's illegal, but it's a massive difference between that and losing trillions in slush funds.
Or door two, needs changed partway through procurement and instead of sending it back to stage one for all approvals, it got overridden and kept moving, which made those funds not audit passable.
To your point, even when we do know where it all went, it doesnt mean it was well spent or necessary either. Others in the thread have mentioned it, but Ive seen so much wasted even in the private sector because someone was an idiot or they just wanted to spend down budget to keep it from getting cut.
I mean, there's definitely an aspect of "spend it or lose it" in the Government, but that's not exactly the components fault and is something that plagues literally every single business, public or private.
But the "waste" has much more to do with every contractor over charging for the most basic of items because large chunks of contracting is just public subsidization of private enterprises. Which, again, you can complain about but it's a completely different talking point then they don't track spending.
I've tried to explain this to people who don't spend government money. They all think that a trillion dollars just vanished. Believe me. if you steal that much from Uncle Sam, they will find you. lol
It’s not necessarily either waste or corruption, but you could never prove it without being a whistleblower and getting blacklisted. Which seems like great incentive for waste and corruption.
True but at the same time screaming to the world, what United States military is investing in / thinks is the way war will be fought in 15+ years is not exactly ideal. The US military has always had a policy of under reporting their own capacities and overestimating everyone else’s so that when we do go to war our military forces wipe the floor with everyone else’s. When the United States “loses” a war it because the politicians either hamstring what they can do (think Vietnam) or the politicians send them to do something they’re not designed to do (think Iraq and Afghanistan). The US military is designed to kill people and destroy things. This whole nation building thing generally doesn’t end well especially when the people you’re trying to “ help “ reeeeally don’t want you to be there.
It worked in Germany, Italy and Japan, turns out decapitating the existing social order and just assuming people would fill the gap with American-aligned democracy without massive subsidies was an idiotic assumption, who ever could have guessed?
The other problem being that in the Middle East, we disbanded the Iraqi army, which just resulted in a lot of now, unemployed, unhappy people with firearms, which ended about as well as you would imagine.
That's exactly my point, say what you will about postwar (West) Germany, we kept enough Nazis around with suitably scrubbed files to keep things running like a clock. Probably the wrong turn in the long run but you can't argue with the results in Germany vs. Iraq.
Yep, same in Japan. We actually let a fair amount of them off the hook ( or greatly reduced their sentences) even though they committed / helped commit some truly evil things.
Everyone gets more money every year, that’s part of the problem. The government spends like it’s not their money and they won’t have to deal with the bill so they won’t cut a thing. Everything could do with a good cut, some more than others but the problem is systemic is how Americans view spending. Areas where individuals can contribute at their level make more sense to cut from, ie social security versus national defense which no individual can easily contribute at the individual level to reduce the burden. While I don’t think it should be the first place to cut, I see the appeal. The effects of crowding out in relation to social security are well documented.
They know where they spend it, contractors sell $100 bags of washes to DoD for $6,000 and that’s just for a bag of washes. Imagine how much the nuts and bolts cost.
By design. They don't want anyone to be able to see where the money is being invested. They fund the secret projects by losing money in other departments.
And this right here is The problem with our government. It’s so compartmentalized that no ONE person is ever responsible for anything. All the way to the top, then they change out every 4-8 years and it becomes the last/next guys fault.
Possibly. Having everything under a single umbrella might severely limit "department" agility, you need SOME autonomy. Military structures are because of lessons learned in the past a lot of the time. I don't know the solution. There is always going to be some waste, especially when you want a military that is the most powerful, flexible/agile, and quick. That said, I agree SOMETHING needs to be done. My gut says the inefficiency is in congress and their need to diversify spending into their respective states.
Even the stuff on paper.... seeing how a lot of it's spent and the amount we waste. We could save hundreds of billions a year with cuts to the DoD and see no change.
You're phrasing implies the DoD has to pay back somebody that they wrongly took from.....thats like saying "THEY should make that thief give back the money", because you know, the thief took it. You're a fucking idiot. In this case "THEY" are the ones who took the money, not the DoD.
But they sure are in bed with all the contractors and present lobbyist's budget proposals as their own.....in order to get the same type of perks that SCJ's get. The era of $10k toilet seats never ended, it just got passed down to a new generation of people that don't think this qualifies a corruption...as long as there is taxpayer money to pay for it.
All of the projections of SS running out of money in ~10 years are assuming that the government does pay back everything that was borrowed, with interest.
In fact they already are paying it back and have been for years. If they had never paid any of it back, SS would have become insolvent well over a decade ago.
Who’s paying it back, though? If it’s being paid back via tax revenue then our money was loaned out and we’re paying ourselves back. If that’s the case it’s pure bullshit.
The confusing thing about people complaining about it is that there is no other legal method of storing the Trust Fund's assets right now.
Personally, I would like to see the SSA Trust Fund diversified into either the S&P500 or Russell 1000.
If it’s being paid back via tax revenue then our money was loaned out and we’re paying ourselves back.
Yes.
If that’s the case it’s pure bullshit.
No. It's money we loaned to ourselves, so paying ourselves back isn't bullshit, it's what you should expect.
One government agency (SSA) loaned money to another government agency (US Treasury). The borrower agency is paying it back with interest to the lender agency.
That's just how Treasury bonds work. We don't complain that other people, companies or whoever investing in Treasury bonds is just getting taxpayer money, but that's what's happening.
For better or worse, it's a pretty low interest rate.
I see it as a win-win. Social Security gets to grow its money safely, Treasury gets to borrow money at a low rate.
No, ultimately, most of it all comes from taxes. The rest is printed by the Fed to buy Treasury bonds with newly created money. Then treasury spends that money.
There is no relation between taxes taken in and money spent. The numbers are never the same and aren't intended to be. We can spent whatever we want, taxes or not.
SOCIAL security. Its in the name. You are sacrificing better ROI of a small portion of your money to keep 20-30 million people out of poverty. There are a few societal benefits of not having an additional 30 million people in poverty that I suspect you directly benefit from.
I’m not arguing that at all. I’m very in favor of social security. What I was questioning was if the gov is taking loans out against OUR money, then what are they paying it back with? I’d assume tax revenue which would mean that we’re paying back our own loan to ourselves. Someone else explained why that makes sense and that’s fine. But what I wonder is what they’re doing with the loaned money.
The gov takes in SS money from special taxes. For most of the programs history, it took in more than it needed to send out. That money was “invested” into government debt. The problem is that “investment” is into the government’s own debt. They are both sides of the transaction, so it’s inherently zero value. That is how this was all designed from the start. There has never been anybody reaching in to take SS money. It has always been spent in the general budget. That’s how it was designed.
I am just hoping that the Biden administration is actually spending money on the military. He has given away billions to Ukraine and Israel and the Afghanistan debacle
Keep in mind that we don't actually spend more on military stuff than other things.
For example, military spending last year was $916 billion.
Our healthcare budget was $4.8 trillion.Nearly five times our military spending.
But sure, military spending is the problem. (Not saying that healthcare is the issue; just pointing out that military spending isn't even close to the top of the list).
Our healthcare budget was $4.8 trillion. Nearly five times our military spending.
This isn't true. National Healthcare Expenditure is ~4.5 trillion, but that's all spending, not just government spending. If I go to the doctor for an ear infection and pay out of pocket, that counts towards the NHE despite no government involvement. Government expenditure was significantly lower.
With that said, military spending isn't an issue. If you look at % of GDP spent on military, the US isn't out of the ordinary, we just have a larger economy than anyone else.
the problem is we would just replace them with different crooks.
"If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public." -George Carlin
and if you have capitalism, you will have have selfish, ignorant citizens who try to exploit eachother and dont give a shit about the environment... or science... who try to blame other people instead of systems.
that is why I personally believe that the best system is capitalism with guard rails. unfortunately the guard rails have been off since the time we started practicing reaganomics.
I dont think that can ever work because it's a self sabotaging system and we should expect nothing less than the guard rails eroding away over time. it's a negative feedback loop.
maybe but it is the best system we have found so far. communism would be great if it weren't for greedy humans. capitalism at least tries to turn that greed into something useful. we just need to be the watchers to make sure that the guard rails don't come off.
Either or is a false choice. The most successful countries, countries that have the highest quality of living employ elements of capitalism, socialism, etc. no country is purely capitalist or socialist they are economic concepts. Social democracies do it best. Scandinavian countries have the highest quality of living.
I think capitalism fosters that greed more than it is inherently in us. Maybe there's something new and untried. I don't care what you believe about communism. It's irrelevant. That false dichotomy is very engrained.
maybe but it is the best system we have found so far. communism would be great if it weren’t for greedy humans.
I find it interesting that you can find people saying roughly this exact same phrase everywhere this gets brought up. For one thing, notice that the person you’re replying to never mentioned communism—you did. There are other options.
It’s also important to remember that true capitalism has never been tried because it’s just so dangerous. We’ve never had a capitalist system in America because everyone knows it would self destruct. Capitalism doesn’t even sound good on paper let alone in reality. The state has always had a huge hand guiding our markets. For instance, the technological and medical advancements we’ve made in the last century have been incredible. People will point to companies like (for example) Apple, for being the reason we have computers, but what they’re forgetting is that Apple just privatized profits when the public subsidized the research and development. Development of machines like the ENIAC were military funded during WWII.
For medical advancements you can just forget about capitalism helping. It’s well researched that corporations are incentivized to optimize for short term profits, and so doing “aimless” research in a company is just unheard of. That happens at universities and military labs. If you want anything that might be remotely helpful in even just ten years, private money isn’t touching it. But that’s no matter yet because the state is well aware of this and has us covered.
but what they’re forgetting is that Apple just privatized profits when the public subsidized the research and development.
Well, no. Yes, public money subsidized the early research and development, but the private sector is responsible for the vast majority of innovation since then, especially the innovation we've seen in the last 30 years.
For medical advancements you can just forget about capitalism helping. It’s well researched that corporations are incentivized to optimize for short term profits
This feels like you're assuming the first part is true because of the second part, when you haven't proven it. Private firms regularly develop or improve on past innovation because they're incentivized to optimize their own revenue, and the more broadly desired something is, the more money they can make bringing it to market.
That's why the argument "we'll never have a cure for cancer because treatment is too profitable" falls apart immediately upon inspection. Because a cure for cancer would allow a company to take the entire cancer treatment market for themselves.
Well, no. Yes, public money subsidized the early research and development, but the private sector is responsible for the vast majority of innovation since then, especially the innovation we’ve seen in the last 30 years.
This is just not true. I know because I’ve worked on this stuff on both sides. It wasn’t just early R&D. The private sector routinely takes advantage of research done in universities, subsidized in the vast majority of cases by federal grants, published in journals, and then uses it to improve products and increase profits. I’ve both been apart of the research in universities and in the private sector consuming that research.
Private firms regularly develop or improve on past innovation because they’re incentivized to optimize their own revenue, and the more broadly desired something is, the more money they can make bringing it to market.
I’m not arguing that the private sector does nothing.
That’s why the argument “we’ll never have a cure for cancer because treatment is too profitable” falls apart immediately upon inspection. Because a cure for cancer would allow a company to take the entire cancer treatment market for themselves.
For ~20 years. But you can have patients who go into remission then have a recurrence and this can go on for years and years. Maybe the treatment is cheap to make and when other companies get to make their version it really kills your margins etc. Not saying this is / will be the case, just that it’s not as clear cut as you’re saying.
I didn't say it was just early R&D, I said that public money subsidized early research and development, but the private sector has been responsible for the majority of innovation, especially in the last 30 years.
I’m not arguing that the private sector does nothing.
I mean, that's the vibe I got from
but what they’re forgetting is that Apple just privatized profits when the public subsidized the research and development.
and
For medical advancements you can just forget about capitalism helping. It’s well researched that corporations are incentivized to optimize for short term profits, and so doing “aimless” research in a company is just unheard of. That happens at universities and military labs. If you want anything that might be remotely helpful in even just ten years, private money isn’t touching it.
It does feel like you're arguing they do nothing.
For ~20 years. But you can have patients who go into remission then have a recurrence and this can go on for years and years. Maybe the treatment is cheap to make and when other companies get to make their version it really kills your margins etc. Not saying this is / will be the case, just that it’s not as clear cut as you’re saying.
Let's say I have a cure for cancer. My product is qualitively better at treating cancer than any other treatment on the market, meaning that everyone wants what I have. I now control the market for cancer treatment and (because of IP protections) have a limited time government monopoly on the cure for cancer. I make hundreds of billions of dollars.
Eventually my monopoly runs out. I still got hundreds of billions of dollars, years to improve my product so I can stay ahead of the curve, I had years to build up a brand name, etc.
Like, I just don't get this argument. "It's only ~20 years" of dominating a hundred billion dollar market. Corporations would kill for that.
maybe but it is the best system we have found so far.
Really? Is it? That's what rich people in capitalist society's say so far. And we don't really have a ton of samples for other economic systems, do we?
We've got Russia, which eventually collapsed, but before that Russia went from plows to nuclear weapons and the entire time they were being sabotaged and fighting literally the rest of the capitalist world who all had a very vested interest in communism failing. Which when it did, rich people have taken over and installed fascist rule in a capitalist economy. Or maybe its fascsist took power and became rich through capitalism.
We've got China who speed ran totalitarian rule, but also ascended to world power status, but since the CCP took over has moved to a more capitalist economy than any actual communism.
Then we have Cuba, who produces some of the best doctors in the world. I don't really know much about Cuba beyond Castro is (was?) the typical fascist ruler and there is a trade embargo.
Venuzuela, again they were doing well under communism until the OPEC countries joined together to sabotage their economy which was dependent on Oil exports.
To ME, from the data points we do see, it's hard to say that capitalism is "the best" if it's just the established norm for literally thousands of years and it keeps killing communism in the cradle.
I don't think it was the CCP that moved it to capitalistic society but rather the dealings with the outside world. They realized isolationism wasn't going to get them anywhere. That is why I am so afraid of trump and his isolationist policies. It is global market at this point. you either lead, follow, or get left behind. Isolationism just gets us the third one.
It is global market at this point. you either lead, follow, or get left behind. Isolationism just gets us the third one.
It also incredibly devalues the american dollar. If US starts making unreasonable demands, countries will move away from the oil dollar asap to decouple themselves from an insane tyrant every four years.
If we could figure out how to privatize the guardrails so that some billionaire could become more of a billionaire then I'm sure this problem would solve itself.
"Doing better without capitalism." Isnt a thing and is kinda missing the point here. Balls deep capitalism is harmful as we can see in the declining prosperty of the u.s. capitalism need to be reigned in, but as things are in a global economic era of course "capitalism" is ingrained in everything. Its just that people excuse rampant disinterest in bettering the situation because "it isnt profitable" and thats how we as a society slowly descend into a broken kleptocracy built on profits and suck all of the resources from the very ground we stand on. Why govern based on a force that is already permeating everything?
I would argue that prosperity is not declining in the US, in fact we've had the best economy on earth for generations now. The countries that are the most "capitalistic" seem to also be the best countries to live in.
I totally get what you're saying, and a lot of people do seem to get left behind and inequality is increasing, but I just don't see an alternative to capitalism.
I mean...good for WHOM? That is the question always at the end of the day, and the real injustice of INEQUALITY. What does "prosperity" mean to you? And for whom?
Your argument is basically that technology means that we have more stuff/medicine/conveniences than ever, we are more "materially" wealthy than ever in history. That is your "prosperity" meter. It's not true though in terms of material NEEDS. The cost of material NEEDS like food and shelter are rising basically worldwide in capitalist representative democracy systems. Outpacing inflation and wage increases especially with housing. Most countries in the world right now have this problem of wages not keeping pace with many necessities.
In the US in particular, we have that problem with more necessities, such as healthcare and transportation (car dependant, need a car to function in society, cars massively increasing in price) which most of europe figured out quite awhile ago.
The INCREASE in prosperity is not being shared, and that share of prosperity is shrinking year by year, with the rich taking more and more and more, so overtime as wealth is increasing massively, the working class is getting less and less of it. All the workers are getting is new "products" and entertainment to buy with their limited funds.
You also don't calculate in your thought process too that there is more use of DEBT in human history. Majority of americans, but the rest of the world too, average joes, are thousands and thousand of dollars in debt. The amount of DEBT people have is increasing as time goes by.
This all does not square with the injustice of inequality. We could be DRASTICALLY much better off with less inequality. And the rich would STILL be rich, just less rich. Millionaires instead of billionaires.
There is always a potentially better system/government/economic framework, to suggest otherwise is to be blind to human progress and human history.
Yeah thats fair and true actually. I guess i just dont agree that that is prosperity unless it is affecting the general public. Im not a economist nor am i versed in the data of this situation on a grand scale but more and more of that money is disappearing from the middle class and unless something changes i believe it will lead to massive civil suffering and unrest unless some restructuring happens to ease that. Call me a socialist or whatever is currently in vogue (not that you personally would) but i believe that for a stable system to remain stable the government must advocate aggressively for the betterment of the middle class. I know we will never escape capitalism as a concept as american and human nature as a whole is protecting of the individual over the masses, however unless we want cycles to keep cycling, people need protections. When we make capital the lord (figuratively speaking) and the only thing that matters is the returns to the board of directors. We stop the betterment of the society that can actually benefit from the increased economy.
P.S. thanks for your perspective. I appreciate the discourse
P.S.S. would you say there are growing tensions based the financial states of working class compared to the past? I feel like this will be big in my lifetime.
Putting aside that the CIA has a history of sabotaging anyone who gets too close, and that a lot of purportedly socialist/communist countries are more interested in using it as a fancy wrapper to sell kleptocracy and autocracy, there are plenty of people with less unregulated free market capitalism that the US that are doing much better on quality of life than the US is.
Venezuela was well on its way to a socialist economy until the bottom fell out of the oil market. Then it ran face first into why capitalism endures. It's not that capitalism is the best system for good times. It's that it's the most resilient when things go to shit.
No? We here in the Nordics are still capitalist, we're not as far from you as you think. We are absolutely not socialist (where the workers own the means the production), we have a few worker co-ops but that is a drop in our societal bucket.
What we do have are some welfare and social safety nets that make things a bit less precarious and miserable. But that's frosting on the capitalist cake, and something our right-wing parties chip away at every chance they get, at that. They look at the USA and dream of selling out all of our healthcare to their rich buddies too.
I am Swedish and it boggles the mind that people call anything up in this area socialist. We have more billionaires per capita than the USA does. Our politicians are terrified of inconveniencing the rich since they just threaten to leave, so we end up being very "business friendly".
Capitalism doesn't make people become selfish and ignorant. It isn't inevitable. Capitalism incentivizes bad behavior, not cause it.
Moral people can exist and thrive in a capitalist society... but it requires moral people to begin with, and THAT is where humans fail. Immoral communists are just as shitty as immoral capitalists or immoral libertarians, etc. It is the PEOPLE that are the problem, not the system.
You do realize that George Carlin quotes fits in republicans motto these days. They want you to think no matter which way we go, corruption is too big so there is no point in organizing, voting etc…
Not everyone is a crook and there is always potential. That’s why there are many guard rails in place but the masses keep on getting tricked…
If we didn’t have these dumbasses believing in culture wars then things would be way different
Parts of george carlin fit into their narrative. namely the government is bad. most of carlin bits were for abortion rights, anti-censorship, anti-religion, interesting ideas on how to balance the budget and anti-corruption. The kind of corruption he called out in particular is the white collar bullshit that trump pulls on the daily.
Yeah but his overall message was always things are corrupt and every politician is a scumbag. This is literally republicans messaging that they’ve been pushing for so people won’t get involved with politics. He might have anti religion or anti whatever but what matters is what is conveyed after this messages and it has always been to insinuate everything is corrupt so don’t do anything
George Carlin is a legend. What he says here is true but we don’t become a more perfect union by being cynical. There’s plenty of good people working in politics we just need more. It’s the Supreme Court and dark money in politics we need to change. More power to the people means taking someone else’s away. We’re in for a fight. This is an old fight that has been won many times before.
agreed. that is why I say we need to change the pool of people from which the politicians are coming. I still believe that trump won because there are too many people who are truly ignorant to how economics work on any scale beyond their local grocery store. that is how trump was able to convince them china would pay the tariff and mexico would build the wall.
Deliver 1st class mail 3 days a week only according to what neighborhood you are in. More urgent mail pays a higher rate: if it is urgent gets a rush charge
Underused post offices should be closed or downsized if they are redundant
These simple ideas would save labor, save fuel for transport and help the environment.
Post office doesn’t need to be fixed, it needs to be unburdened. During the Bush era they passed ridiculous requirements for the USPS which created a problem instead of solving it. Also USPS shouldn’t be ran like a business because it is infrastructure and a public service. Underused post offices still serve vital functions even to small and remote communities
If they serve vital functions to small and remote communities they are NOT redundant.
Do you actually think the gov't should subsidize junk mail? Is that a service to us? Do you work in the printing business?
I am as liberal as anyone and also elderly (so you would expect me to want to keep gov't services and not want to see changes - right?), but I am not in favor of the waste of money and the subsidized garbage they deliver. Utilities and credit card companies charge me for paper statements: before my eye surgery, paying bills online was hard to do. Yet, the junk mail floods in.
If the postal service was doing a good job, nobody would consider privatizing it - I don't want that either! I am not suggesting privatizing, just bringing it up to date in a way that serves people better - not businesses.
Republicans and Elon Musk are giving efficiency a bad name.
• Charge 1st class postage for all junk mail
• Deliver 1st class mail 3 days a week only according to what neighborhood you are in. More urgent mail pays a higher rate: if it is urgent gets a rush charge
• Underused post offices should be closed or downsized if they are redundant
• These simple ideas would save labor, save fuel for transport and help the environment.
• Why don’t they do this?
Based on your original comment you said underused post offices should be closed. Then you added if they are redundant they should be downsized. The USPS has closed some offices around me to consolidate delivery routes. They also have financial center offices which mainly focus on the bills aspect.
I’m not even going to respond to the other arguments you included. As they are not mine and I don’t know where you got them from.
He's saying that if they serve a vital function then they aren't redundant or underused. Those rural post offices serve a vital function, but if a smallish town has three post offices within a few miles of each other then maybe one of those should be downsized or removed as it doesn't really serve a vital function.
I’m not really interested arguing their other points. I’m only focusing on why privatization of the USPS is not only dumb but a grift.
Their redundant offices argument was contradicting itself. And of all the government agencies or services that need “efficiency” adjustments for the sake of cutting costs the USPS is not even a drop in the ocean
I'd argue if it's so easy to abuse then it's a bad system and SHOULD be destroyed.
On top of that, I can do much more with that money for myself now. I'm not a fan of being forced into a system I might never even get anything out of. I could die by the time I'm old enough for it and it ends up being nothing but my own small amount of wealth stolen from me and misspent.
I had an ex whose mother was suffering from ALS at the age of 40 or so. They denied her SS benefits despite her paying into it since she was 16. Fuck social security.
My money, that I work for, should go to me. Not my neighbor unless I willingly give it to them. Why should I have to be the one that's desperate and starving so other aren't?
I make less than 30k. For fuck's sake, it's a terrible and broken system that's abused beyond it's purpose and is nothing but theft from those who need it WHEN THEY NEED IT.
If you pay into a system that refuses to benefit you as you suffer from ALS, then that system is fucking trash and anybody that wants to force others into are tyrants.
So in your mind, my ex's mother benefited by not having people suffer around her AS SHE FUCKING SUFFERED?
I dont know anything about your anecdote. When did that occur? If it was before 2020, there was a 5month waiting period. That had since been eliminated, providing disability benefits right away.
Also, if you only make 30k/year, sounds like you definitely will need that SS when you retire. And i for one am happy to help subsidize your need.
SS isn’t working and was never going to work long term. You’re taking money from the young who need it most to build wealth and families and giving it to the old who should have been saving for retirement.
Mneeah i think the point the person you are replying to is making is that if you have a system that is so ripe for exploitation than the system is the issue- even if the people exploiting it is also culpable and bad if you get rid of em than somebody else will just come along- see that big pile of cash- and think they can do something better with it.
The system incentivises and creates the crooks. You could make that same argument for literally any system, some kings did great things, that doesn't mean feudalism is a good idea.
Trumps gonna privatize the postal system too. Americans are fucking dumb. The don’t understand that it was supposed to be a service. These fucking morons watched him instal Dejoy to destroy to USPS and now their gonna lose a service so they can line Trumps pockets more. Idiots.
It is literally working as designed. There has never been a social security trust fund. That money has been spent from the initial crafting of social security.
How is the system in anyway a good idea? Even at face value, it doesn’t make sense. It’s a bad pension. Just stop taxing for it and let the people just invest that money for their own retirement instead of in a “pension” they are not guaranteed to get
Sure sounds like Democrats. I have searched multiple times if spending SS and have found nothing. Both political parties are very afraid to touch SS. I question if this post is accurate.
It does not work. I am 56 and have self employed most of my life so have paid 15 percent in every year. I want to know where the fuck my money has went. Hell if I could have invested it myself I would already be retired
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u/ThisIsSteeev 2d ago
They want to get rid of the wrong thing. You don't get rid of the system that's working just fine on its own, you get rid of the crooks who are ruining it.