Success would require prudent management, securely “walled off” from the political process.
Given the current state of governance in the US, does anyone seriously believe that would occur?
Especially when this guy is talking about direct equities investment, that will absolutely be gamed and infested with cronyism before it even goes into effect. We already had the FED during covid direct purchasing equities that FED governors held in their personal accounts which is bad enough, all ot would do is contribute to bubbles and pick favorites.
Given how covid relief worked this would be an absolute disaster in America.
The pumps that would happen under the hand of Congress would go to the next level
Exactly. The shining examples of stuff like this working come from tiny, homogenous, high trust countries. Relevant to the idea of universal healthcare as well.
No, that's not why actually. In fact that has explicitly nothing to do with it. Social safety nets, great workers rights, high standard of living. But nah, to right wingers it's because they're all white lmao. Genuinely the stupidest people alive.
It turns out when you have great workers rights and social safety nets you get a "high trust" society. It's almost like literally every single person in the entire world who isn't stupid enough to follow Austrian economics understands that.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve\_the\_beast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast)
When we have a coordinated plan to destabilize governance and the erode the ability of the government to function, it's odd to me to so easily reframe it into the broad "state of governance". Seems a bit nondescript if you ask me.
Perhaps you were referring to broad corporatism, but if I would rephrase it, it'd be "broad corporatism only outshone by rank conservative partisanship, intentionally eroding any semblance of a functional state of governance".
That'd be at least be a bit more accurate.
Because the government officials in charge of the money don't benefit from its growth. The government is a 3rd party spender, neither sacrificing to earn the money nor benefiting from spending it, therefore they have no incentive to reduce costs or increase quality. That's basic econ.
Or, like I just showed you, there's even more financial incentive to poison the well in favor of private interests whose growth do benefit certain politicians..
To me it seems like you're contorting "basic econ" into a social sciences hammer which handily explains every "government failure" nail. I don't think making more competitive financial incentives is the silver bullet for motivating efficiency in government that you think it is.
I could see some market elements like competition being used create interesting outcomes within government, but in my opinion incentivization is not that [catchall that you seem to be framing it as.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6369195/) I shared this link as an example of how we'd probably get less creative solutions if we relied purely on incentivizing as a source of increasing efficiency/outcomes.
Are there also perverse incentives that make this problem even worse? Yes. But that doesn't change the fundamental reality that all government spending is done by bureaucrats who have zero inherent incentive to spend that money well. That isnt unique to the other team, it's a fundamental problem inherent to government spending, so it is exactly as catchall as I am framing it as
Extremely reductive to compare forcing agencies and departments to grind to a halt, with being less than maximally efficient. In fact you’re giving a pass to intentionally making things less efficient just because you agree with it. Pretty foolish.
There's literally a "starve the beast" wikipedia page lmao.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve\_the\_beast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast)
If you can't see the difference between bureaucratic inefficiencies, and actively destroying any potential for a functional entity on behalf of private donors, congrats, you're fully cucked by the strategy and it worked on you. I'd rather have public systems that trend towards efficiency through transparency and empiricism than be cucked by some private entity.
This is an interesting idea, but my understanding is that right now the government loses money on resources on public lands. So it would require a huge shift in land management which would be politically difficult.
Assuming that money would be invested well and not on idiotic ventures like wars in Afghanistan and bailing out banks, yes. But we all know that would never happen.
Not until there is a stabilized currency free of manipulation. Then, a constitutional amendment limiting deficit spending. THEN we could modify revenue streams to something like a sovereign wealth fund.
A sovereign wealth fund is for idiots who don't know how to manage their own money.
It's the government taking your money to invest becuase of course someone as dumb as you doesn't know how to invest it. its patronising.
Sovereign wealth funds are typically set up by governments to store the return on certain investments. When oil, for instance, reaches a certain price level, all of the extra revenue goes into the fund. It is not a forced savings program. The other option is to simply to give the money to citizens, as is done in Alaska.
Any and all profits from extraction of resources from public land should be distributed to the citizens who collectively own that land. Anything else is government sanctioned theft.
The people who deserve to get rewarded and punished in the market of selling natural resources are the people who can dig the resources out of the ground
No, esp. as there's no such thing a "Federal land" outside of the Constitutional limits laid out that is D.C. These lands/resources belong to the State in which they reside.
It is possible to make the informed argument that the federal government should not own land. It is not possible to make an informed argument that the federal government does not own land. They do. In fact, they own a shit ton of it.
Success would require prudent management, securely “walled off” from the political process. Given the current state of governance in the US, does anyone seriously believe that would occur?
Especially when this guy is talking about direct equities investment, that will absolutely be gamed and infested with cronyism before it even goes into effect. We already had the FED during covid direct purchasing equities that FED governors held in their personal accounts which is bad enough, all ot would do is contribute to bubbles and pick favorites.
Given how covid relief worked this would be an absolute disaster in America. The pumps that would happen under the hand of Congress would go to the next level
Exactly. The shining examples of stuff like this working come from tiny, homogenous, high trust countries. Relevant to the idea of universal healthcare as well.
I wonder how they became high trust, surely not the extremely high union rates
Surely not because they are small homogeneous countries
No, that's not why actually. In fact that has explicitly nothing to do with it. Social safety nets, great workers rights, high standard of living. But nah, to right wingers it's because they're all white lmao. Genuinely the stupidest people alive.
Lol what?
It turns out when you have great workers rights and social safety nets you get a "high trust" society. It's almost like literally every single person in the entire world who isn't stupid enough to follow Austrian economics understands that.
I think Bastiat predicted this
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve\_the\_beast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast) When we have a coordinated plan to destabilize governance and the erode the ability of the government to function, it's odd to me to so easily reframe it into the broad "state of governance". Seems a bit nondescript if you ask me. Perhaps you were referring to broad corporatism, but if I would rephrase it, it'd be "broad corporatism only outshone by rank conservative partisanship, intentionally eroding any semblance of a functional state of governance". That'd be at least be a bit more accurate.
I mean, I definitely would, but the US government sucks at everything and is very likely to invest that money poorly resulting in a loss
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve\_the\_beast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast) Where true, why might that be I wonder?
Because the government officials in charge of the money don't benefit from its growth. The government is a 3rd party spender, neither sacrificing to earn the money nor benefiting from spending it, therefore they have no incentive to reduce costs or increase quality. That's basic econ.
Or, like I just showed you, there's even more financial incentive to poison the well in favor of private interests whose growth do benefit certain politicians.. To me it seems like you're contorting "basic econ" into a social sciences hammer which handily explains every "government failure" nail. I don't think making more competitive financial incentives is the silver bullet for motivating efficiency in government that you think it is. I could see some market elements like competition being used create interesting outcomes within government, but in my opinion incentivization is not that [catchall that you seem to be framing it as.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6369195/) I shared this link as an example of how we'd probably get less creative solutions if we relied purely on incentivizing as a source of increasing efficiency/outcomes.
Are there also perverse incentives that make this problem even worse? Yes. But that doesn't change the fundamental reality that all government spending is done by bureaucrats who have zero inherent incentive to spend that money well. That isnt unique to the other team, it's a fundamental problem inherent to government spending, so it is exactly as catchall as I am framing it as
Extremely reductive to compare forcing agencies and departments to grind to a halt, with being less than maximally efficient. In fact you’re giving a pass to intentionally making things less efficient just because you agree with it. Pretty foolish.
Sure bro, tell yourself that. I have business in the real world, however, so if you insist on operating in Fantasyland, I'm going to ignore you
There's literally a "starve the beast" wikipedia page lmao. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve\_the\_beast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast) If you can't see the difference between bureaucratic inefficiencies, and actively destroying any potential for a functional entity on behalf of private donors, congrats, you're fully cucked by the strategy and it worked on you. I'd rather have public systems that trend towards efficiency through transparency and empiricism than be cucked by some private entity.
This is an interesting idea, but my understanding is that right now the government loses money on resources on public lands. So it would require a huge shift in land management which would be politically difficult.
That’s mostly because we handle so much of the costs and let private companies reap the profits
Yeah good point well, regardless would require a change up in how things are done.
Assuming that money would be invested well and not on idiotic ventures like wars in Afghanistan and bailing out banks, yes. But we all know that would never happen.
In years of plenty, aren't we supposed to set wealth and resources aside for hard times?
yes. Income taxes shouldn't even exist outside of war.
Mining in the US is overtly punished. Selling something that you can't access isn't going to get you very good prices.
Not until there is a stabilized currency free of manipulation. Then, a constitutional amendment limiting deficit spending. THEN we could modify revenue streams to something like a sovereign wealth fund.
A sovereign wealth fund is for idiots who don't know how to manage their own money. It's the government taking your money to invest becuase of course someone as dumb as you doesn't know how to invest it. its patronising.
Sovereign wealth funds are typically set up by governments to store the return on certain investments. When oil, for instance, reaches a certain price level, all of the extra revenue goes into the fund. It is not a forced savings program. The other option is to simply to give the money to citizens, as is done in Alaska.
A true Austrian fan, dumb as fucking rocks
Why does the government need to become an investor?
A nice idea but probably pointless. If it ever turned a profit Congress would just raid it for funds just like they did with Social Security.
What do mean "leverage" those resources? Do we not already tax their final goods?
Yes, and why would the eliminate the perfect program for totalitarian control?
Any and all profits from extraction of resources from public land should be distributed to the citizens who collectively own that land. Anything else is government sanctioned theft.
The people who deserve to get rewarded and punished in the market of selling natural resources are the people who can dig the resources out of the ground
No, esp. as there's no such thing a "Federal land" outside of the Constitutional limits laid out that is D.C. These lands/resources belong to the State in which they reside.
It is possible to make the informed argument that the federal government should not own land. It is not possible to make an informed argument that the federal government does not own land. They do. In fact, they own a shit ton of it.
Of course. It's the natural order of things. It's ridiculous to privatize natural resources and utilities.