Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
Forwarded message:
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 11:13:07 -0500 From: Petro <petro@playboy.com> Subject: Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
Really, you are saying they couldn't possibly recognize the benefits of teaming up and co-locating fire stations, or that they wouldn't sub-contract to a company that handled fires?
So, you want to sub-contract out which is going to raise the cost and doesn't alleviate the insurance company from regulatory and supply issues. It'd cost a fortune.
This could still be more effcient than government.
I'd love to see your cost breakdown...
"reasonable" in cost? There is a LOT if inefficiency in the system that competition could eliminate.
Yep, and a lot of people the competition would eliminate as well. I'll live with the inefficiency as long as the cost is affordable for the quality of service delivered. I don't mind fireman sitting around eating bar-b-q unless somebodies house burns down.
Read that last bit. They got so carried away, that they spent themselves out of existence.
That is one example, I know of several fortune 100 companies that are equaly extravagant. The problem with Compu-Add was they shot their whole wad.
Governments just raise taxes, there is no penalty for ineffcientcy, or lousy spelling.
Sure there is, it just takes longer than a rifle bullet to settle.
Ok, so you limit the senators and congressmen, then the unelected beaureacrats have the power since they know the system and run the system.
Not at all, they are limited in what they can do by the laws. It's not like they're running around sending bills to people out of the blue and making up the system as they go along. Despite your protestations to the contrary the system just don't work that way.
Wearing a painted leather jacket & ripped up blue jeans is NOT a reason to get hauled off the street, searched and questioned.
If it happened to you and you didn't file a harrassment complaint then you got what you deserved. If you don't use the system it won't work. Never happened to me or anyone I knew unless they were in particular places at particular times. If a cop busts people at a corner every nite for breaking the law it isn't the cops fault, it's the stupid people who keep doing the same damn thing at the same place knowing full well the consequences.
Looking different is not illegal.
Thinking different is not illegal.
Nobody said it was and it isn't. Now if you happen to fit the description of another perp well that's just too damn bad.
With a bunch thrown in at the federal level. Federal Matching Funds & etc.
Oh, malarky (and stay away from my business books). It's obvious you never do accounting. The matching funds are for roads outside of the city or for highways that transit cities. They are not supposed to be used for city street or FM or RM roads.
Then why do they keep building them?
Because we still hav an Army whose job it is to defend this country you nit-wit. If we didn't keep fixing them and expanding the system as people move around and expand the Army might find it a tad hard to do their job when called to it. And yes, I know the Militia is the one who is supposed to be called in for that sort of stuff - that's a whole other topic.
Promote does not mean "give away", it means "promote", do things which incourage.
Absolutely. While I agree that there are some particular issues that need fixing in a major way that is not the same (as you would have us believe) as saying as a result the whole system should be scrapped.
They were the heads of the governments. The skills and abilities it takes to get to that level insure that the people who get there have no concern for those underneath them.
Oh, you mean insanity, egotism, neurosis, etc.?
There is no making up my mind. I never claimed the a government could or should, rather I am claiming that it can't and won't, and to expect it to be able to, much less willing to is foolish.
Ah, but it does try and in some cases it succeeds. So my expectation is not completely without merit.
So we agree that any government is doomed from the start, since w/out people of honesty and integrity no system will work properly.
No, *all* people are not such. Most people I know are honest and have integrity. What has to happen is a set of checks and balances, which we are admittedly short of at the moment. The system isn't perfect, never claimed to be (read the 1st paragraph if the Constitution), and if it remains so then it's *OUR* fault and not the systems.
No, that face that stares back from the mirror makes every effort to be as honest and forthright as it can. It causes grief sometimes, but it's the principle.
You claim to be honest yet promote a system that allows slavery, murder, theft, and other horrendous crimes against man.... ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
At 7:52 PM -0500 11/10/98, Jim Choate wrote:
Forwarded message:
Really, you are saying they couldn't possibly recognize the benefits of teaming up and co-locating fire stations, or that they wouldn't sub-contract to a company that handled fires? So, you want to sub-contract out which is going to raise the cost and doesn't alleviate the insurance company from regulatory and supply issues. It'd cost a fortune.
Sub-contracting can often lead to cost savings. For instance, instead of each insurer having their own fire station network, they could all share one, and only pay a certain cost-per-subscriber. Kind of like today where insurers don't usually own hospitals & doctors offices.
"reasonable" in cost? There is a LOT if inefficiency in the system that competition could eliminate. Yep, and a lot of people the competition would eliminate as well. I'll live with the inefficiency as long as the cost is affordable for the quality of service delivered. I don't mind fireman sitting around eating bar-b-q unless somebodies house burns down.
I am not just talking about firehouses Jim, and I don't mind them barbequing either.
Read that last bit. They got so carried away, that they spent themselves out of existence.
That is one example, I know of several fortune 100 companies that are equaly extravagant. The problem with Compu-Add was they shot their whole wad.
Extravagance isn't always bad. I just spent 1 1/2 weeks (well almost) living at a hotel in Sunnyvale on Playboy's dime. They let us spend a bit of money, stay in nice hotels (Marriot Residence Inn), eat pretty much what we want (I've never hit the meal limits, but I don't eat too fancy) we can get up to a full sized car (they wouldn't let me rent a motorcycle, but that was more insurance than anything), it is a bit on the extravagant side, but I was also working 10 to 15 hour days for 12 straight days (worked before I left to go out there as well). It's sort of a "payment in kind". It isn't the extravagance of Business, it's the idiotic things they spend money on. Microsoft Exchange for instance. About 5 times more expensive than a competitive product, and about 20 times more expensive than the cheapest commercial solution that will work. There is also a lot of free software out there that does the same thing. So no, I am not going to try to say that Business is has to be more efficient than Government, just that the market is usually more efficient than Government.
Ok, so you limit the senators and congressmen, then the unelected beaureacrats have the power since they know the system and run the system.
Not at all, they are limited in what they can do by the laws. It's not like they're running around sending bills to people out of the blue and making up the system as they go along. Despite your protestations to the contrary the system just don't work that way.
Look at the IRS, they make their own rules, and send bills to people randomly.
Wearing a painted leather jacket & ripped up blue jeans is NOT a reason to get hauled off the street, searched and questioned. If it happened to you and you didn't file a harrassment complaint then you got what you deserved. If you don't use the system it won't work.
Oh, they had an excuse, someone wearing blue jeans and a leather jacket robbed a store--On the other side of town, and I was walking.
Never happened to me or anyone I knew unless they were in particular places at particular times. If a cop busts people at a corner every nite for breaking the law it isn't the cops fault, it's the stupid people who keep
It is when the law used has been thrown out of court every time it's used, and citizens complain, but the cops still use it to harass people.
Looking different is not illegal. Thinking different is not illegal. Nobody said it was and it isn't. Now if you happen to fit the description of another perp well that's just too damn bad.
The cops seem to think so.
With a bunch thrown in at the federal level. Federal Matching Funds & etc. Oh, malarky (and stay away from my business books). It's obvious you never do accounting. The matching funds are for roads outside of the city or for
There are quite a few roads in Chicago that are maintained by state and federal funds.
highways that transit cities. They are not supposed to be used for city street or FM or RM roads.
Supposed to or not, that is what they get used for. LSD in Chicago is maintained in part by federal funds, it is a (mostly) controled access highway entirely within Chicago.
Then why do they keep building them?
Because we still hav an Army whose job it is to defend this country you nit-wit. If we didn't keep fixing them and expanding the system as people
Listen Fuckwad: (1) there are paved roads from one coast to the other, as well as railways. (2) There hasn't been a war fought on CONUS since we attacked Mexico. (3) Most of the roads being built with federal funds are for "congestion relief", not roads to new places so troops can move. Most roads being built today are either for Suburbs, or for more efficiently getting people to and from job centers. If you don't believe that, you are a fool There hasn't been a military case for building superhighways since the 1930's and 40's.
move around and expand the Army might find it a tad hard to do their job when called to it. And yes, I know the Militia is the one who is supposed to be called in for that sort of stuff - that's a whole other topic.
The Army. Marines, and National Guard are fully capable of getting whereever they need to go with our without the current highway system, if they weren't they'd be worthless. Also, it is just as easy for the OpFors to use the roads as it is for the friendlies. I am not saying you are lying with this one, I just can't believe that anyone was foolish enough to fall for it.
Promote does not mean "give away", it means "promote", do things which incourage.
Absolutely. While I agree that there are some particular issues that need fixing in a major way that is not the same (as you would have us believe) as saying as a result the whole system should be scrapped
I, and others are saying that there is no way of building a system that cannot, and indeed will not be abused.
They were the heads of the governments. The skills and abilities it takes to get to that level insure that the people who get there have no concern for those underneath them. Oh, you mean insanity, egotism, neurosis, etc.?
Well, at least egotism, and a complete disregard for the truth.
So we agree that any government is doomed from the start, since w/out people of honesty and integrity no system will work properly.
No, *all* people are not such. Most people I know are honest and have integrity. What has to happen is a set of checks and balances, which we are
Most people are honest--TO A POINT, and the integrity people have is getting less and less. If everyone you know is honest and has integrity, then you must not know very many people. None of your friends cheat on their taxes (cheating is dishonest, refusing to pay would show integrity, if AND ONLY IF it follows from a belief that the system has no right to demand your labor) etc?
admittedly short of at the moment. The system isn't perfect, never claimed to be (read the 1st paragraph if the Constitution), and if it remains so then it's *OUR* fault and not the systems.
Any system is flawed, and I will repeat myself: (a)Any system will work if enough of the people in that system are honest, have integrity, believe in the system and want it to work. Any system. (b)No system will work if a large enough number of people within that system try to cheat, coopt, or otherwise "get over" on that system. Given the above, anarchy will work just as well as any other system in the long run because the world more closely resembles (b) than (a), hence any system will fail.
No, that face that stares back from the mirror makes every effort to be as honest and forthright as it can. It causes grief sometimes, but it's the principle. You claim to be honest yet promote a system that allows slavery, murder, theft, and other horrendous crimes against man....
No, no, I promote anarchy, you are promoting governments which do those things. -- "To sum up: The entire structure of antitrust statutes in this country is a jumble of economic irrationality and ignorance. It is a product: (a) of a gross misinterpretation of history, and (b) of rather naïve, and certainly unrealistic, economic theories." Alan Greenspan, "Anti-trust" http://www.ecosystems.net/mgering/antitrust.html Petro::E-Commerce Adminstrator::Playboy Ent. Inc.::petro@playboy.com
At 12:18 PM 11/11/98 -0500, Petro or other people wrote:
Sub-contracting can often lead to cost savings. For instance, instead of each insurer having their own fire station network, they could all share one, and only pay a certain cost-per-subscriber.
Government subcontracting can be yet another excuse for graft and kickbacks or it can be an opportunity for the private sector to seriously compete for government business, or at least an opportunity to compete for graft :-) Sometimes this can save money for the public, though seldom as much as letting services be provided by the private sector.
Looking different is not illegal. What's that, white boy? Thinking different is not illegal. Always has been, anywhere, any time....
Listen Fuckwad: (1) there are paved roads from one coast to the other, as well as railways. (3) Most of the roads being built with federal funds are for "congestion relief", not roads to new places so troops can move.
Of course they are, and everybody's pretty much known it all along, but "defense" was the excuse used for having the Feds get into the road-building business on a much more massive scale than ever before. Much of it corresponded nicely with "urban renewal", the 60s policy of making cities more beautiful by replacing black peoples' houses with freeways. Once (white) people got used to freeways, they mostly stopped complaining about expenditures, and started complaining that they didn't have _their_ freeway yet.
The Army. Marines, and National Guard are fully capable of getting whereever they need to go with our without the current highway system, if they weren't they'd be worthless.
No, but the industrial base that keeps the military functioning does benefit from the highway system.
(2) There hasn't been a war fought on CONUS since we attacked Mexico.
Excuse me? Are you talking about some recent attack on Mexico, or are you referring to the Mexican War of 1846? Or are you contending that the Confederate States weren't part of the Contiguous United States, and therefore the Union's ReConquest of the South wasn't in CONUS? Or that the Indian wars in the west weren't wars, just Police Actions, or that the various ex-Mexican territories weren't States yet, and thus not CONUS? Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
At 3:50 AM -0500 11/14/98, Bill Stewart wrote:
At 12:18 PM 11/11/98 -0500, Petro or other people wrote:
Sub-contracting can often lead to cost savings. For instance, instead of each insurer having their own fire station network, they could all share one, and only pay a certain cost-per-subscriber.
Government subcontracting can be yet another excuse for graft and kickbacks or it can be an opportunity for the private sector to seriously compete for government business, or at least an opportunity to compete for graft :-) Sometimes this can save money for the public, though seldom as much as letting services be provided by the private sector.
We weren't talking about Government Contracting (which I'll agree with you would be politely called a scam), but rather in a crypto-anarchic enviroment whereby an insurer or several insurers would pay a subcontractor (the local fire prevention/suppression company).
Looking different is not illegal. What's that, white boy?
It's not illegal for me to die my hair Green and Pick, and wear a Tutu and black patent leather pumps. In this case, it probably should be, but isn't.
Thinking different is not illegal. Always has been, anywhere, any time....
Not in any legal book in this country.
Listen Fuckwad: (1) there are paved roads from one coast to the other, as well as railways. (3) Most of the roads being built with federal funds are for "congestion relief", not roads to new places so troops can move.
Of course they are, and everybody's pretty much known it all along, but "defense" was the excuse used for having the Feds get into the road-building business on a much more massive scale than ever before. Much of it corresponded nicely with "urban renewal", the 60s policy of making cities more beautiful by replacing black peoples' houses with freeways. Once (white) people got used to freeways, they mostly stopped complaining about expenditures, and started complaining that they didn't have _their_ freeway yet.
So it's time for the feds to get out. We can't afford more roads, and they aren't needed.
The Army. Marines, and National Guard are fully capable of getting whereever they need to go with our without the current highway system, if they weren't they'd be worthless. No, but the industrial base that keeps the military functioning does benefit from the highway system.
It benefits far more from the rapidly deteriorating rail system, and besides, we have enough roads.
(2) There hasn't been a war fought on CONUS since we attacked Mexico. Excuse me? Are you talking about some recent attack on Mexico, or are you referring to the Mexican War of 1846?
Actually, I was thinking of the one that Teddy Rossevelt was in, unless I have my history confused.
Or are you contending that the Confederate States weren't part of the Contiguous United States, and therefore the Union's ReConquest of the South wasn't in CONUS? Or that the Indian wars in the west weren't wars, just Police Actions, or that the various ex-Mexican territories weren't States yet, and thus not CONUS?
If IRC, Roosevelt Attacked (or counterattacked) Mexico in the late 1800's or early 1900's. That would have been after the Indian Wars, After the UnCivil War. Anyway, there hasn't been a war fought on the Main Land USA in a LONG fucking time, and the next one's going to be another UnCivil war where the roads will help both sides. It's a crap excuse. -- "To sum up: The entire structure of antitrust statutes in this country is a jumble of economic irrationality and ignorance. It is a product: (a) of a gross misinterpretation of history, and (b) of rather naïve, and certainly unrealistic, economic theories." Alan Greenspan, "Anti-trust" http://www.ecosystems.net/mgering/antitrust.html Petro::E-Commerce Adminstrator::Playboy Ent. Inc.::petro@playboy.com
participants (3)
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Bill Stewart -
Jim Choate -
Petro