Government folly


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Foster care fatalities

There are some great foster homes out there, but the system as a whole is beyond broken.

Liberty's Edge

Un-schooling
The current homeschooling laws in several states allow parents to basically do whatever they want with their kids while they're "teaching" them...to include not teaching them at all.


Xpltvdeleted wrote:

Un-schooling

The current homeschooling laws in several states allow parents to basically do whatever they want with their kids while they're "teaching" them...to include not teaching them at all.

Did you post this in government folly because you're opposed to this?

I was under the impression that you thought kids should have a lot more autonomy.

Liberty's Edge

Bitter Thorn wrote:
Xpltvdeleted wrote:

Un-schooling

The current homeschooling laws in several states allow parents to basically do whatever they want with their kids while they're "teaching" them...to include not teaching them at all.

Did you post this in government folly because you're opposed to this?

I was under the impression that you thought kids should have a lot more autonomy.

Even I have limits...this stuff is just recockulous.


Xpltvdeleted wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:
Xpltvdeleted wrote:

Un-schooling

The current homeschooling laws in several states allow parents to basically do whatever they want with their kids while they're "teaching" them...to include not teaching them at all.

Did you post this in government folly because you're opposed to this?

I was under the impression that you thought kids should have a lot more autonomy.

Even I have limits...this stuff is just recockulous.

I tend to agree insomuch as I wouldn't approach child rearing that way, and I gave my daughter a great deal of lee way. OTOH I still think it's the parents right to raise their kids how they see fit short of criminal abuse.

I would be curious to know how kids raised like that do on standardized testing.

Liberty's Edge

Bitter Thorn wrote:
Xpltvdeleted wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:
Xpltvdeleted wrote:

Un-schooling

The current homeschooling laws in several states allow parents to basically do whatever they want with their kids while they're "teaching" them...to include not teaching them at all.

Did you post this in government folly because you're opposed to this?

I was under the impression that you thought kids should have a lot more autonomy.

Even I have limits...this stuff is just recockulous.

I tend to agree insomuch as I wouldn't approach child rearing that way, and I gave my daughter a great deal of lee way. OTOH I still think it's the parents right to raise their kids how they see fit short of criminal abuse.

I would be curious to know how kids raised like that do on standardized testing.

I think it is criminal the way they're doing it...They are setting them up to fail once they get out of the house...who (even fast food) is going to hire someone without a high school diploma or GED?


Truth is we have no evidence one way or another as to whether such 'unschooling' will be a boon or detrimental to the children involved. I'm not really inclined to judge one way or another until we see how these types of children turn out. Considering that we will probably be able to provide a fairly definitive answer in about a generation I don't really see the need to force parents to choose.

I do think that for this program of unlearning to really work one needs a parent that is actually involved. There is likely a big difference in results between a parent that is simply neglectful and one that is paying attention to what the kids are doing - even if the kids are deciding what they are doing, and stepping into to facilitate. In some sense I think the skill the parents must really impart in their children, if they go down this path, is to teach them how to learn.

Beyond this I think there have to be at least some limits - sure it sucks to go to the dentist - but its part of a parents job to have long view and the long view here is that the short term gain of not going to the dentist is not worth the long terms ills.


The SEC is a Total Failure and Part of the Problem


While we don't know enough about about the incident as a whole at this point, I found this article interesting.

Pro Publica MMS


Chicago Fed Failed to Halt Speculative Bank Lending


Some lawmakers also shorted stocks, congressional records show


U.S. exempted BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact study


Army Capt. who Stole $690K Gets 30 Mos.

Liberty's Edge

Bitter Thorn wrote:

Army Capt. who Stole $690K Gets 30 Mos.

This seems not so much to be government folly, but the government doing its job to investigate and punish an individual for his actions.


Xpltvdeleted wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:

Army Capt. who Stole $690K Gets 30 Mos.

This seems not so much to be government folly, but the government doing its job to investigate and punish an individual for his actions.

Unless he's saying the sentence was too weak. Which I would certainly say it was.


Bitter Thorn wrote:
U.S. exempted BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact study

"No regulation on business! No environmental oversight!" are major Tea Party platforms here in TX. Maybe they'll modify that stance a bit when the oil hits the shore.... but I seriously doubt it.


Orthos wrote:
Xpltvdeleted wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:

Army Capt. who Stole $690K Gets 30 Mos.

This seems not so much to be government folly, but the government doing its job to investigate and punish an individual for his actions.
Unless he's saying the sentence was too weak. Which I would certainly say it was.

I was kind of thinking how this is a tiny fraction of the money we can't seem to account for. IIRC it's at least in the hundreds of millions if not billions.


Bitter Thorn wrote:
Orthos wrote:
Xpltvdeleted wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:

Army Capt. who Stole $690K Gets 30 Mos.

This seems not so much to be government folly, but the government doing its job to investigate and punish an individual for his actions.
Unless he's saying the sentence was too weak. Which I would certainly say it was.
I was kind of thinking how this is a tiny fraction of the money we can't seem to account for. IIRC it's at least in the hundreds of millions if not billions.

We are up to trillions of dollars unaccounted for now. The Federal Reserve refuses to tell Congress how much money it gave to which banks in order to bail them out. We have no idea how much worthless paper the Federal Reserve took in exchange. That the Federal Reserve is also fiercely opposing any attempt to audit the gold reserves in Fort Knox is not encouraging.

I am getting nostalgic for the days when it was only the Pentagon and the CIA which blatantly violated Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution by refusing to publicly account for their expenditures.


NPC Dave wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:
Orthos wrote:
Xpltvdeleted wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:

Army Capt. who Stole $690K Gets 30 Mos.

This seems not so much to be government folly, but the government doing its job to investigate and punish an individual for his actions.
Unless he's saying the sentence was too weak. Which I would certainly say it was.
I was kind of thinking how this is a tiny fraction of the money we can't seem to account for. IIRC it's at least in the hundreds of millions if not billions.

We are up to trillions of dollars unaccounted for now. The Federal Reserve refuses to tell Congress how much money it gave to which banks in order to bail them out. We have no idea how much worthless paper the Federal Reserve took in exchange. That the Federal Reserve is also fiercely opposing any attempt to audit the gold reserves in Fort Knox is not encouraging.

I am getting nostalgic for the days when it was only the Pentagon and the CIA which blatantly violated Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution by refusing to publicly account for their expenditures.

...and people wonder why I don't trust the government.


bump! :)


houstonderek wrote:
Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:


Our experiences are radically different.

I don't call for the dissolution of voluntary adult interactions.

I would argue that governments have vastly less accountability. If the food bank I support is wasteful or stupid I support another one. If they are not transparent enough for my liking I support another one.

When my federal government is corrupt, wasteful, and inefficient they are a bit tougher to replace.

I can't fathom how you think government is more accountable than private charity.

Private charity does not usually involve voting for one. Nor are the media searching high and low for any sign of corruption (or better yet sex scandal) so that they can put it in the media and and have lots of sales.

What really blows my mind however is how much Americans seem to loath their government and are certain its corrupt and incompetent. I mean America is the leader of most of the organizations of which the western world is a part. Now most citizens of most states in the western world simply do not view their government with this much animosity. We understand that there is corruption and incompetence but feel that these cases are the exception to the rule and that most of the time the mandarins are doing a pretty good job with our (usually higher) tax dollars.

Hence if the American people are certain that their government is incompetent at best and completely corrupt at worst should we not be excluding you from such organizations as a failed state?

Certainly I find this contrast pretty striking and its something one only really notices from hanging out on message boards. Huge numbers of Americans really deeply do not trust their government or its institutions and you just don't get this when dealing with Brit's, the French or Danes or nearly any other member of the western world - at least the developed western world.

Get out to Eastern Europe and things start to change.

I think you have to understand...

HD, what did you do in the service?

Liberty's Edge

Canada's economy is suddenly the envy of the world...due to increased regulation.

Some highlights:
Economy grew at a rate of 6.1% in the first quarter.
Housing market florishing/no mortgage metldown.
3/4 of the jobs lost in the recession have been recovered.

Unless the gub'mint wants people going back to keeping their cash in a matress, they need to implement stricter banking regulations so that people will once again have faith in the banks. I'm not for the gov't regulating the day to day aspects of peoples' lives, but when it comes to institutitions that people are all but required to use, there needs to be some oversight. These corporations are in it for a profit after all, and their necessity and ubiquity pretty much ensures that the capitalist system isn't going to work as far as self-regulation is concerned.

Scarab Sages

Well, aren't people always saying that the world is f$%$ed up?


Xpltvdeleted wrote:

Canada's economy is suddenly the envy of the world...due to increased regulation.

Some highlights:
Economy grew at a rate of 6.1% in the first quarter.
Housing market florishing/no mortgage metldown.
3/4 of the jobs lost in the recession have been recovered.

Unless the gub'mint wants people going back to keeping their cash in a matress, they need to implement stricter banking regulations so that people will once again have faith in the banks. I'm not for the gov't regulating the day to day aspects of peoples' lives, but when it comes to institutitions that people are all but required to use, there needs to be some oversight. These corporations are in it for a profit after all, and their necessity and ubiquity pretty much ensures that the capitalist system isn't going to work as far as self-regulation is concerned.

Banking and credit are part of people's day to day lives. This also presumes that banking and securities are not heavily regulated already.

Some food for thought.

Did Deregulation Cause the Financial Crisis?

Barone: Unregulated Firms to Bail Out Regulated Ones

I'll try to add more soon.


Xpltvdeleted wrote:

Canada's economy is suddenly the envy of the world...due to increased regulation.

Some highlights:
Economy grew at a rate of 6.1% in the first quarter.
Housing market florishing/no mortgage metldown.
3/4 of the jobs lost in the recession have been recovered.

Unless the gub'mint wants people going back to keeping their cash in a matress, they need to implement stricter banking regulations so that people will once again have faith in the banks. I'm not for the gov't regulating the day to day aspects of peoples' lives, but when it comes to institutitions that people are all but required to use, there needs to be some oversight. These corporations are in it for a profit after all, and their necessity and ubiquity pretty much ensures that the capitalist system isn't going to work as far as self-regulation is concerned.

While the Canadian government did keep the banks heavily regulated (and they screamed and cried about it constantly - you could barely open a newspaper business section without without reading some bank CEO's op ed on how Canada's government was stifling the banks and ruining any chance we had at ever competing in the global market place. That said this is only one element that led to Canada riding out the recession with less trouble then many other states.

To a very large extent the current recession is about debt loads among both governments and citizens - a book keeping crisis basically. Canada faired reasonably well in this regards because the government had, as the article mentions, been running significant government surpluses. Thats a huge factor, the government had lots of room to maneuver as the crisis developed and lots of leeway among investors as we'd been in worse with less before. This surplus is due in large part because Canadians paid fairly high taxes even in the good times and economic growth resulted in the national debt shrinking to ever smaller percentages of the nations GNP.

Likely even more important than then bank regulation would be demanding that your government take a much larger chunk of your income. So get out there and demand the government take more of your money in taxes.

I know I will.


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:
Xpltvdeleted wrote:

Canada's economy is suddenly the envy of the world...due to increased regulation.

Some highlights:
Economy grew at a rate of 6.1% in the first quarter.
Housing market florishing/no mortgage metldown.
3/4 of the jobs lost in the recession have been recovered.

Unless the gub'mint wants people going back to keeping their cash in a matress, they need to implement stricter banking regulations so that people will once again have faith in the banks. I'm not for the gov't regulating the day to day aspects of peoples' lives, but when it comes to institutitions that people are all but required to use, there needs to be some oversight. These corporations are in it for a profit after all, and their necessity and ubiquity pretty much ensures that the capitalist system isn't going to work as far as self-regulation is concerned.

While the Canadian government did keep the banks heavily regulated (and they screamed and cried about it constantly - you could barely open a newspaper business section without without reading some bank CEO's op ed on how Canada's government was stifling the banks and ruining any chance we had at ever competing in the global market place. That said this is only one element that led to Canada riding out the recession with less trouble then many other states.

To a very large extent the current recession is about debt loads among both governments and citizens - a book keeping crisis basically. Canada faired reasonably well in this regards because the government had, as the article mentions, been running significant government surpluses. Thats a huge factor, the government had lots of room to maneuver as the crisis developed and lots of leeway among investors as we'd been in worse with less before. This surplus is due in large part because Canadians paid fairly high taxes even in the good times and economic growth resulted in the national debt...

LOL! I think US debt and spending are out of control, but I find it hard to imagine a scenario where I would trust them with more of my money to waste. It's like giving cash to an addict; why would I give away more money to waste when they have wasted so much already?

EDIT: How many tens of trillions of dollars are enough?



TARP: Government Bailout Failed in Many Ways, Says Watchdog
Special Inspector General Says Unemployment, Foreclosures Still Too High


TARP as Congressional Failure


CNN TARP watchdog slams Obama foreclosure program

$75,000,000,000 may help 1.5 million home owners. That would be about $50,000 per person and a significant number of these folks will wind up in foreclosure anyway.

It makes my head want to explode watching Gietner try to spin this as a success.


Bitter Thorn wrote:
TARP as Congressional Failure

TARP: A Congressional Failure (pod cast)


Eye on Loan Modifications

I like pro publica's follow up.


joke:
A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California
When suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you
Give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany .

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government", says Bud.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep. .....

Now give me back my dog.


Bitter Thorn wrote:
** spoiler omitted **...

Heh.


Bailout Recipients


NRA exemption shows campaign disclosure bill's cynical, fatal flaws


What Do They Put in the Water?


Biden's contempt for the little people


Xpltvdeleted wrote:

Canada's economy is suddenly the envy of the world...due to increased regulation.

Some highlights:
Economy grew at a rate of 6.1% in the first quarter.
Housing market florishing/no mortgage metldown.
3/4 of the jobs lost in the recession have been recovered.

Unless the gub'mint wants people going back to keeping their cash in a matress, they need to implement stricter banking regulations so that people will once again have faith in the banks. I'm not for the gov't regulating the day to day aspects of peoples' lives, but when it comes to institutitions that people are all but required to use, there needs to be some oversight. These corporations are in it for a profit after all, and their necessity and ubiquity pretty much ensures that the capitalist system isn't going to work as far as self-regulation is concerned.

Canada is in a bubble, just like the US is. There is a high chance of serious economic problems in the near future.

When cab drivers are flipping houses, that is a good sign the bubble is about to burst. If I had a house in Vancouver, I would put it up for sale today.

The problem can't be solved by increasing regulation, because the cause of the bubble is the central bank of Canada, which, if it is anything like the US Central bank, is completely unregulated.


Bitter Thorn wrote:
I thought I'd start a thread about government waste, fraud and general foolishness.

When are people going to shut up about the Bush administration? ;P


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:
I thought I'd start a thread about government waste, fraud and general foolishness.
When are people going to shut up about the Bush administration? ;P

I think I'm an equal opportunity griper. ;)


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:
I thought I'd start a thread about government waste, fraud and general foolishness.
When are people going to shut up about the Bush administration? ;P

When the fallout finally settles, I presume.


Some revealing quotes


More Obama tax increases on small businesses


Bitter Thorn wrote:
Some revealing quotes

About 90% of those quotes are specific about banning handguns and assault weapons, which frankly I could live with. Rifles are good for hunting and target shooting, and shotguns are great for hunting and for home defense, and you could still have them even if all those people quoted got their way. The only reason you'd need an assault rifle instead is if you plan on blowing away large numbers of your fellow citizens at a time, which is probably something we want to avoid (there's a reason private citizens can't own tactical nukes as well). And I've always found the main draw of handguns is their concealability, which means that I disproportionately have to worry about drunks and gang kids carrying them -- I'd feel safer if we could openly carry long guns, rather than have everyone packing a concealed weapon.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:
Some revealing quotes
About 90% of those quotes are specific about banning handguns and assault weapons, which frankly I could live with. Rifles are good for hunting and target shooting, and shotguns are great for hunting and for home defense, and you could still have them even if all those people quoted got their way. The only reason you'd need an assault rifle instead is if you plan on blowing away large numbers of your fellow citizens at a time, which is probably something we want to avoid (there's a reason private citizens can't own tactical nukes as well). And I've always found the main draw of handguns is their concealability, which means that I disproportionately have to worry about drunks and gang kids carrying them -- I'd feel safer if we could openly carry long guns, rather than have everyone packing a concealed weapon.

Some of those folks also say thing similar to your position in front of one group then turn around and say they want to ban all private firearms possession in front of another group.

Obviously we aren't going to agree regarding your position on tactical weapons. Millions of people like me have somehow managed to avoid "blowing away large numbers of your fellow citizens at a time" with our evil "assault weapons" which is an absurdly vague term. "Assault weapon" laws frequently target rifles and shotguns used for hunting, so I can't agree with "and you could still have them even if all those people quoted got their way".

BTW, it's perfectly legal to openly carry long guns and side arms in most jurisdictions. I've done so on a number of occasions.


Obamacare 'High-risk' pool medical insurance program set to begin


Bitter Thorn wrote:
Some of those folks also say thing similar to your position in front of one group then turn around and say they want to ban all private firearms possession in front of another group.

Are you seriously calling me a liar? I don't have a lot of scruples, but my word is one of them. So is it really impossible I might be in favor of some firearms, but not all -- or must I be some sort of two-faced sleaze? You and I have gotten along in the past, BT, but this is way over the line. I had best assume that was just a thoughtless slip on your part, making that sort of a blanket statement without offering to back it up with live ammo.

Bitter Thorn wrote:
Obviously we aren't going to agree regarding your position on tactical weapons. Millions of people like me have somehow managed to avoid "blowing away large numbers of your fellow citizens at a time" with our evil "assault weapons" which is an absurdly vague term.

In my mind -- and a vague law is no law at all, so exact definitions count, "anything capable of being easily modified to allow for fully-automatic fire." Where "fully automatic" excludes "semi-automatic," again by definition. And I never said they were "evil" -- they're tools, like anything else. The intended use of that particular tool is to kill a lot of people, as in a mass battle. There's no need to use it for that, but if not, its ownership is fairly pointless -- it doesn't do anything else better than any other more appropriate tool. BTW, do you really believe that everyone should be allowed unrestricted access to nuclear weapons?

Bitter Thorn wrote:
"Assault weapon" laws frequently target rifles and shotguns used for hunting, so I can't agree with "and you could still have them even if all those people quoted got their way".

Definitions. It's possible to outlaw murder without outlawing butchering cows, isn't it? Or are all anti-murder people trying to take away your steak? A law -- any law at all -- is only as good as how it's written and interpreted. And I know you're something of an anarchist, but I'm assuming you're not advocating making murder legal, and abolishing all laws completely -- if so, there's no point of connection between you and the rest of society, and certainly no point in any discussion with you.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Bitter Thorn wrote:
Some of those folks also say thing similar to your position in front of one group then turn around and say they want to ban all private firearms possession in front of another group.
Are you seriously calling me a liar?

Dude, you are jumpy today. Jeez.

He's not talking about you. He's talking about the people in the quotes.


Orthos wrote:
Dude, you are jumpy today. Jeez.

Anyone wants to call me a liar, or even come close, had best shoot first. I'm not tall, or handsome, or rich, or charming, or cool, and I never will be any of those things. But my word is good.

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