Category Archives: Government

1 Reason The State Department Turned On #RexTillerson: He Tried Trimming Budgets & Getting Rid Of Deadwood

Business, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Free Markets, Government, Political Economy, Taxation, The State

The Economist notes that Rex Tillerson was a poor secretary of state—but not for the reasons I would advance.

One reason for their opinion is that, “Disastrously for morale, he declined to defend his own department when the White House proposed cutting its budget by 25% or more … Mr Tillerson squandered goodwill with a corporate restructuring that felt to many staff like an invitation to resign. At one point, outside consultants sent round a questionnaire asking: “To optimally support the future mission of the Department, what one or two things should your work unit totally stop doing or providing?” (“Trump Unbound: In foreign affairs, America just moved closer to one-man rule,” March 17, 2018.)

TILLESRSON TRIED TO CUT GOVERNMENT! Defending your employees, The Economist here equates with increasing or maintaining the budget for the department, it diplomats, envoys and other career and or deadwood staff.

State institutions are self-reinforcing and not amenable to reform; they grow through failure.

So while it would be nice if state institutions were able to reform, because of the structure of incentives, the state cannot be corrected. The incentive structure underlying state institutions is antithetical to reform.

To correct processes that may be killing people—affirmative action, when the subject of special privileges isn’t qualified—you have to cut budgets in the billions. This likely will never happen, in state institutions, because they don’t abide by the profit motive. So to express belief in this is to express belief in the possibility of the state fixing itself.

The libertarian grasps that the state grows through inefficiency. The more it bungles—the greater its budget will be. Economically, the state’s incentives are inverted.  A private company, on the other hand, grows through economic and performative efficiencies; by singles the customer. The state is the opposite. As a monopoly, it need please nobody. For example, the education system is a giant failure.  Will it be scrapped? Of course not. The system will reward itself with MORE, not less, funds to fix the problem.

This is a structural fact of the state.

Why can the state grow and prosper through inefficiency? Because it has access to the funds of an indentured third party, taxpayers, and has the promiscuous use of the printing press.

A private institution can come back from the abyss, because, economically, it will go bust if it doesn’t start pleasing customers. However, if, like the Florida bridge collapse, a private enterprise is working in tandem with the state, then taxpayers bail it out.

Profit is privatized, loss is socialized.

Most people no longer read or understand the economics of the state. Ten years ago, I had readers who had at least read Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.

 

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‘What If Democrats Win Enough Seats In Congress To Override A Presidential Veto’?

Democrats, Elections, Federalism, Government, Labor, Welfare

The Conor Lamb victory in Pennsylvania raises the fear that, “When the mid-terms roll round, [Democrats] would win enough seats in Congress to override a presidential veto.”

Democrats far from the seats of power and from Nancy Pelosi’s orbit are looking to appeal to regular Americans, namely the Trump constituency.

* Duly, Lamb is “a former marine and federal prosecutor.” (Used to be the armed fores were squarely in the conservative camp.)

* Mr Lamb campaigned at rallies with unions, such as the steelworkers, the coalminers at a United Mine Workers.

* “Mr Lamb promised to protect pensions of union members as well as Social Security and Medicare benefits for all.”

* “Lamb was ‘a God-fearing, union-supporting, gun-owning, job-protecting, pension-defending, Social-Security-believing … sending-drug-dealers-to-jail Democrat,’ enthused Cecil Roberts, the union boss. The Democrats need more like him.”

MORE: “Conor Lamb has shown Democrats how to win in places they usually lose.”

UPDATE II (3/26): New Bridge Collapses, New Trains Derail, Navy Keeps Crashing, Police & FBI Fail: Are US Institutions Being Hollowed Out?

Affirmative Action, Government, Intelligence, Labor, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Military, Race, The State

A Washington-State Amtrak train, on a maiden trip, ends up dangling over Interstate 5, at DuPont, after leaving the tracks. The train’s engineer is traveling at 78 mph into a curve, where a 30 mph speed-limit is required and signs to that effect posted. Three passengers die, 62 are injured. Clearly a major systemic failure was afoot.

The public receives no follow up, to date. Media demand none.

Has anyone heard what became of the investigation into another Amtrak wonder, “the train that derailed in Philadelphia, May 14, 2015“? Naturally not. Like the more recent derailment, the train “was equipped with an automatic speed control system that officials say could have prevented the wreck, which killed eight passengers and injured hundreds. But the system, which was tantalizingly close to being operational, was delayed by budgetary shortfalls, technical hurdles and bureaucratic rules, officials said Thursday.”

AND NOW, a spanking “new pedestrian bridge collapses at a Florida university campus.” The “newly installed 950-ton pedestrian bridge that spanned 174 feet over the seven-lane road, also known as Calle Ocho, had collapsed, pancaking vehicles and leading to four deaths.”

People in their cars are pulverized.

Who on earth constructed this shit? Affirmative hires?

At least one kid is asking questions about the authorities in charge (something the ban-guns kiddies refuse to do):

One of the basics about construction is that everything should be tested beyond any doubt before it’s opened,” said Junia, 19, a sophomore at FIU. “Was this even tested before it was opened? This is really disheartening.

The navy has had its share of problems (not least its obscene TV ads which still declare a force funded by American taxpayers to be “a global force for good,” helping to eradicate poverty the world-over. Fuck it. That’s a betrayal of the Oath of Office!).

Are America’s institutions being hollowed out by policy? Is the tipping point being reached? I suspect so. All this here is anecdotal, but you too suspect the same when you give it some thought. (Schools, anybody? Run by anti-white, anti-male, dangerous, not-very-bright females, some with the Y Chromosome.)

Government failure is everywhere apparent. Failure at every level was all over the Florida, Douglas-High shooting. Not uncharacteristically, one offending officer, Scot Petersen, has been rewarded with retirement, not punishment, for dereliction of duty during the massacre.

Wait a sec. US government workers are never punished. (And the kids have been dumbed-down by the educators aforementioned as to the role of government. Thus  they refuse to demand accountability from their overlords. Next they’ll seek to ban beds where rapes occur on them.)

American institutions were once more merit-based. The attitude of those who’re doing the hollowing-out, through preferential, non-merit based hiring, quotas and set-asides, can be summed thus: Shit happens. Deal.

UPDATE I (3/16): GOVERNMENT KILLS. Like South Africa, the U.S. government, in this case the Department of Transportation, has a pyramid of hiring preferences. You can guess which variable features prominently in the considerations. It’s not competency. Certain kind of companies—ethnic lineage and complexion count—are encouraged to bid for government tenders. The “Munilla Construction Management, the South Florida firm” which gave us the Florida International University Bridge, is a veteran of unsafe practices. It’s what happens when political considerations override competency. It’s ALWAYS the case with government, which is why government should do very little hiring. Very little of anything, for that matter.

MORE: “Companies That Built Collapsed FIU Bridge Had Been Fined for Safety Violations.”

UPDATE II (3/26):

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UPDATED (4/5/018): The Teachers’ Pets Of Douglas High Can’t Think Straight

Constitution, Crime, Education, Family, Government, GUNS, The State

THE NEW COLUMN IS “The Teacher’s Pets Of Douglas High Can’t Think Straight.” It’s now on WND.com. Or, if you prefer fewer pop-ups, on the one and only Unz Review.

An excerpt:

“In America,” observed as Oscar Wilde, “the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.”

So it is with the activist kids who’ve emerged from the Parkland, Florida, school massacre of February 14th, in which 17 of their own were murdered.

Each one sounds like the proverbial teacher’s pet, groomed to take a monolithic message to the media.

Like their educators, these one-track minds “don’t impress me much.” The National Rifle Association (NRA) they invariably frame as big, bad and greedy; government as not big enough, generally good and certainly benign.

There are, indubitably, good arguments to be made against the NRA. The kids—who managed to be, for the most, rude, ungrammatical, sanctimonious and smarmy—failed to muster them.

Trained pets that they are, the dogged media kids of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High seemed capable of focusing only on the one causal factor to the exclusion of all others: guns, their legal purveyors and their law-abiding owners.

The students who were front-and-center on the idiot’s lantern were unwilling to hold the shyster sheriff, Scott Israel, and his notoriously iffy Broward County department, responsible for—there is no way to finesse it—enabling, indulging, even grooming killer Nikolas Cruz over years. To students, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office (BSO) was blameless. Lackluster logic led them to the NRA alone.

One young media darling told of his love of Civics classes. This, while refusing to consider the state’s role in what were systemic and systematic failures.

Reliably derelict and criminally negligent, Sheriff Israel and his Broward County law enforcement didn’t “slip-up.” As a matter of progressive policies and philosophy, sheriff and officers had decided against protecting the people they had sworn to protect.

The BSO has been practicing the progressive penal abolition and restorative justice models of crime “prevention.” Yet our auditioning activists have refused to do their basic civic duty: hold this branch of government accountable for its end of the civic compact.

Out of the mouths of babes we hear that officer Scot Petersen and his compadres—they milled about outside Douglas High, while inside children were being riddled by bullets—were mere NRA scapegoats.

Almost unanimously unmoved were the kids by the fact the BSO had received 45 desperate calls over years, detailing homicidal threats made by the killer and violent, deviant altercations in which he was embroiled. Thirty-nine times had the Broward Sheriff’s officers visited the Cruz home in seven years. A critical mass of criminality and pathology was discounted by law-enforcement in ways at once callous, stupid and depravedly indifferent.

The one civic-minded kid could recite the purpose of a bicameral legislature, but cared not a bit about the imperative of government to protect life, liberty and property. Or, about the role of the Second Amendment in mitigating the effects of such a dangerous government. Likewise was the FBI given a pass for being  every bit as criminally culpable as the Broward County sheriff and his lawful crime syndicate.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is a repeat offender. …

… READ THE REST. “The Teacher’s Pets Of Douglas High Can’t Think Straight” is now on WND.com. Or, the Unz Review.

UPDATE (4/5/018):

How about “Che Guava”? (?As opposed “Guevara.”)

The kids are creepy:

Tucker The Great exposes the cult of the kid:

And dumb: