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What Does the Government Do Well?

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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby Atlantean_Relic » Wed 12 Mar 2008, 00:59:36

Two words, Fuck Up.
Was a long and dark December
When the banks became cathedrals
And the fog
Became God
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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby FreakOil » Wed 12 Mar 2008, 04:52:18

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 's')teal

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'k')ill

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'c')heat

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'l')ie





Interesting coincidence everyone... all we need to add is 'smuggle drugs' to that list and the USG has violated all Five Precepts of Buddhism.


The CIA armed and funded the Chaozhou triads - who fled to northern Burma, Laos and Vietnam after the Communist takeover of China - in the hopes that they would stage an uprising against the Communists in Yunnan province in southern China.

The Chaozhou used the weapons and financing to take control of the heroin trade, setting up refineries in the Golden Triangle, then smuggling the herion into Hong Kong, selling the product there to overseas buyers and laundering the cash. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Hong Kong was the money-laundering capital of the world.
"We shall live in interesting times, and we shall die in them too." - Heineken
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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby BigTex » Thu 13 Mar 2008, 01:06:43

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FreakOil', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 's')teal

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'k')ill

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'c')heat

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'l')ie





Interesting coincidence everyone... all we need to add is 'smuggle drugs' to that list and the USG has violated all Five Precepts of Buddhism.

The CIA armed and funded the Chaozhou triads - who fled to northern Burma, Laos and Vietnam after the Communist takeover of China - in the hopes that they would stage an uprising against the Communists in Yunnan province in southern China.

The Chaozhou used the weapons and financing to take control of the heroin trade, setting up refineries in the Golden Triangle, then smuggling the herion into Hong Kong, selling the product there to overseas buyers and laundering the cash. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Hong Kong was the money-laundering capital of the world.

Ah man. You beat me to it. I was going to say de-stabilize foreign governments that we don't like.
:)
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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby bodigami » Sun 16 Mar 2008, 00:31:32

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '(')...)
It's ironic that even though government doesn't function especially well, every government seems to grow as fast as its citizenry will allow. Not too many governments voluntarily shrinking out there.
(...)


interesting point. government shrinking is what I really mean by Anarchism... but public-private is almost semantic; because governments are pawns of private (usually corporate) interests.
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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby BigTex » Sun 16 Mar 2008, 02:12:33

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '(')...)
It's ironic that even though government doesn't function especially well, every government seems to grow as fast as its citizenry will allow. Not too many governments voluntarily shrinking out there.
(...)


interesting point. government shrinking is what I really mean by Anarchism... but public-private is almost semantic; because governments are pawns of private (usually corporate) interests.


The closest to a shrinking government you are likely to see is something like the Reagan years, where the government shrunk taxes but kept spending money and just borrowed whatever it needed to keep expanding.
:)
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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sun 16 Mar 2008, 02:24:26

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '(')...)
Not too many governments voluntarily shrinking out there.
(...)


The closest to a shrinking government you are likely to see is something like the Reagan years, where the government shrunk taxes but kept spending money and just borrowed whatever it needed to keep expanding.


There seems to be an inexorable tendency for governments to get bigger and bigger and bigger until it gets to the point where the inefficiencies cause severe problems.
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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby AWPrime » Sun 16 Mar 2008, 08:54:01

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'I') was thinking about it earlier, and I couldn't think of anything that the government does really well. Anything the government does, either directly or through contractors, seems to take longer, cost more and not work as well as we would like.

Are we talking about the US government or governments in general?
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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby Homesteader » Sun 16 Mar 2008, 09:13:30

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'I') was thinking about it earlier, and I couldn't think of anything that the government does really well. Anything the government does, either directly or through contractors, seems to take longer, cost more and not work as well as we would like.

Local fire departments do a good job of putting out fires and taking care of injured people, I suppose.

Some local police departments do a good job of keeping order.

Some state universities are pretty good.

A lot of states seem to be good at building prisons and housing "criminals."

It's ironic that even though government doesn't function especially well, every government seems to grow as fast as its citizenry will allow. Not too many governments voluntarily shrinking out there.

Maybe someone else can think of some other things that government does well.


The US government does a very commendable job of bombing countries. Five stars on that point.

The USA's occupation skills aren't quite as good, however. One star only.


I'll bet the private sector could bomb countries better than the government.


That's certainly a debatable point BT. But there is little doubt that the private sector (as much as I hate to admit it... lol) could conduct an occupation better than the US government. Way better, in fact.


Could be argued that they indeed have if the rise of consumerism around the world is the yardstick.
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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby Kingcoal » Sun 16 Mar 2008, 11:23:24

Government exists for one reason only; to control the great unwashed masses otherwise known as the mob. Since this is the only real mission of the government, they really don't have to do anything else well. Everything else the government does is peripheral and usually in the name of appeasing the mob or defending the private property rights of the enfranchised. Go back in time just a hundred years or so and you'll find that most people understood that maintaining order was THE ONLY thing that they could expect out of government. The idea of government as a provider of charity is a recent phenomena which grew out of the windfall of cheap energy, namely oil. Suddenly, for the first time in recorded history, there was a huge windfall of wealth squirting out of the ground, so much wealth that there was plenty to share. With this huge windfall, the government embarked on huge public works projects such as the interstate highway system and “entitlement” programs for citizens. Diminishing oil supplies will vastly reduce this charity from the federal government. People will soon wake up to the reality of their ancestors; government exists to make and enforce laws and provide a defense against invaders, they have no other constitutional duty.
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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby Chesire » Sun 16 Mar 2008, 13:47:48

Goverment does a great job of giving the MClemmings choices .

It does an outstanding job of controlling not only the choices but the risks and rewards of those choices .
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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby AWPrime » Sun 16 Mar 2008, 19:57:46

Kingcoal, welfare is new but investment in infrastructure by governments isn't.
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Re: What Does the Government Do Well?

Unread postby deMolay » Sun 16 Mar 2008, 23:16:55

Confiscate people's property and redistribute it to buy votes with entitlement programs and promises.
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