Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Johnll]

Is it too early to ask the evangelical ones to don a brown shirt to be ready to riot? You know just in case.

[kishnevi]

Today in work, my Muslim coworker (from Bangladesh),  who became a citizen last year, asked me, "Why do all those people vote for Trump?"
Me:  Wave hands in frustration because I can't really figure it out, antiTrump that I am.
She:  "If he wins, I'll have to go back to my country!"
Me:  "If he wins, I may have to go to your country!"

[drogulus]

Patently false.  What you apparently don't know about some of the Portland programs is that some rely on existing private infrastructure.  There were also alternative public programs, proposed by Liberals, that focused on the far less expensive option of using buses and increased budgets for road maintenance.  But choo-choo cuckoos here, they can't get enough.  To be fair, cost-benefit analyses can be hard to read through ideologically tinted glasses.

     That's quite a concession, some liberal idiot projects are actually a good idea. I never said none of the liberal idiot plans were bad. I though I made that clear. I merely said that all the good plans were liberal idiot plans. But that point can be hard to read through ideologically tinted glasses.

      Look, it's not that people want liberals to build bridges, it's that they want those bridges built, and liberals will build them and conservatives make excuses for not building them. They're better at strategically running out of dollars than building anything.

[Todd]

That's quite a concession, some liberal idiot projects are actually a good idea.

I didn't say it was a good idea.  It was a more cost effective choice than what was selected.  The best choice for reducing congestion - the goal that that was being sought - would have been an expansion of the existing access controlled bypass highway and the construction of a new one farther to the west.  No choo-choos in that option, though.

They're better at strategically running out of dollars than building anything.

Odd, I see the fully private construction taking place at the Nike headquarters almost everyday, with rapid progress and ample funding, and, less than two miles away, a fully funded state project to repave a 1/4 mile stretch of road has already been going on since last summer and is not complete.  I believe it is slated for complete this summer.  Clearly liberal statists have got their stuff together.

[drogulus]

Odd, I see the fully private construction taking place at the Nike headquarters almost everyday, with rapid progress and ample funding, and, less than two miles away, a fully funded state project to repave a 1/4 mile stretch of road has already been going on since last summer and is not complete.  I believe it is slated for complete this summer.  Clearly liberal statists have got their stuff together.

     There's nothing odd about private interests taking advantage of existing public infrastructure. If a liberal idiot builds something, of course they'll take advantage, they're supposed to. Bad planning and execution can only reduce public confidence from the high level prior building inspired. Nature created liberal idiots to run and populate cities just like it created everyone else to fly over. We all play our part.

     I don't know how the choo-choo factor plays out everywhere. The general case is it's better to have them than not, though it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing. A city gets big enough to build a light rail system, even a subway, and it becomes affordable, it's built, the city gets richer and pulls away from similar cities that run out of dollars instead. In this case it looks like ObamaHate played a role, maybe only as an excuse, to spurn the federal money. I get the conflict between hate the highways, hate the choo-choo, but these are opening salvos, shitty things you say before you get to the real trading. Another factor played a role this time. ObamaHate tends to take on a life of its own, a factor that can distort outcomes as the Bloomberg article showed. Is "Christian" infrastructure a real thing? How badly do Repubs want people to fly over them?

     The Athenians called the free riders of their day "idiots". That's where we get the word. Repubs think its smart and principled to free ride today. Let the idiots build, if it works we'll give credit to private enterprise that takes advantage, as they were meant to, and if we scuttle the project, well hooray. Thanks, Obama.

We might be closer in politics than most here on this board (seeing that we are into limited government and share the same distrust in the ability of people creating havoc - unintended or not - when they spend other people's money), but this is not a good argument.

     Well, it's not, but there aren't any good arguments against the public good, particularly in urban areas where so much of all good is public by necessity. It's clearer there than anywhere else that private enterprise can't build on a public substrate that is not built.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Pretty damn funny, so long as you don't consider the consequences:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/17/opinion/take-the-trump-quiz.html

[(poco) Sforzando]

Thank you. Most helpful.

Well, the mechanism in itself is not that complicated, although it takes some headscratching to figure it out. My question is rather --- why should it be so? Why is not the popular vote enough by itself? If the Electoral College does nothing more and nothing else than ratifying the popular vote then it is superfluous; if it nullifies the popular vote then it is undemocratic. In both cases there is no logical or moral reason for its existence. 

There was a lot of debate in the early days over whether the President should be elected by Congress, by a popular vote, or some alternative. The Wikipedia article on the Electoral College is pretty informative if you care to slog through it. But I don't think there has ever been any valid reason to believe the US was a total democracy; rather it has always been a representative democracy. The EC generally follows the popular vote, but not necessarily. What happens is that the popular vote in each state determines which electors will ultimately cast their votes for their party's candidate.

Gore came close with 266 electoral votes, and there was a lot of confusion about how Florida designed its ballots. I know staunch Floridian Democrats who feared they had unintentionally voted for Pat Buchanan. And so the final outcome was held up for weeks until that old originalist Antonin Scalia participated (on what Constitutional basis I have no idea) in a 5-4 decision (which he later claimed was a 7-2 decision) that effectively gave the prize to Dubya with what results we all know. "Get over it," chuckled that great lover of the Constitution in a 2012 speech about the outcome, to laughter from the audience. At least there weren't any riots.

[Florestan]

     There's nothing odd about private interests taking advantage of existing public infrastructure.

If private interests can legally take better and quicker advantage of existing public infrastructure than public interests can, then too bad for public interests and three cheers for private interests! Life is hard and if you´re stupid it is even harder!    And if you´re stupid on your own, that´s fine with me --- but being stupid on behalf of a whole community is a mortal sin. 

If I were to let you know how many Romanian government-financed infrastructure projects (highways, bridges, parking lots, housing residences etc) end up being either utter failures, or costing at least three times the market price, and how all those which eventually get being done are at least two years behind the schedule --- then you would accuse me of being a Red State moron. despite my being not American. So I will just keep my mout shut on the issue. 

[Florestan]

I don't think there has ever been any valid reason to believe the US was a total democracy

I am fully aware of the conservative / reactionary mantra that there is no mention whatsoever of "democracy" either in the US Independence Declaration or in the US Constitution --- although I haven´t checked them word by word. I am also myself not an unqualified democrat --- I do firmly believe that there are quite a lot of issues that cannot be decided democratically without running the real and present danger of a majoritarian tyranny. But why would the US conservatives think and proclaim that the USA is the most democratic, or the most politically enviable nation the mankind has ever known, has always been beyond my comprehensive powers. 

[André]

In Canada the elected Government is that issued from the party that garnered a win in most ridings. If the total ridings won exceeded 50% you had a majority government. Otherwise it was a minority government. With a bipartite House of Commons (Liberals and Conservatives) it ended most often with a majority government. The past 40 years has seen the emergence of a Left-of-Liberals party, the New Democratic Party (NDP). Initially socialist, it became more or less a 'social democratic' outfit with a left wing.

In the last election, the NDP's position on most economic issues was squarely in the middle, whereas Trudeau's Liberals jumped on the leftist economic vacuum to advocate government deficits to bolster the economy. In the electorate's mind the NDP became more conservative, less innovative and the Liberals became the party of the families, the poor, the elderly, etc. The Conservatives were left stranded on the beach gasping for air.

All that to say that a strong majority for the Liberals was achieved with less than 40% of the popular vote.

Calls for 'representative' apportionment of the ridings has always been around for decades, but since the system favours a party (any party) that eventually wins the most ridings, talks for that change always emerge from the losers, with the consequence that they cry in the wilderness. Canadians are never so happy than when a majority governement is elected, which means the can continue to care about their daily routine without being subjected to agonizing questioning about Big Society, Fairness for All and other thorny issues.

[drogulus]

If private interests can legally take better and quicker advantage of existing public infrastructure than public interests can, then too bad for public interests and If private interests can legally take better and quicker advantage of existing public infrastructure than public interests can, then too bad for public interests and three cheers for private interests!

     All public infrastructure is built for private interests to take advantage, that's its justification. Your free ridership is distorting your understanding. All government spending creates private sector dollars. The purpose of government is to do what the private sector can't or won't do for itself. The question becomes how broad or narrow the public interest is defined. Does it have regular people in it, who greatly benefit from public transportation? How are working stiffs not in the private sector?

     "Three cheers for the private sector" is my reason for public improvement, public finance, public health, armies, police forces, what have you. I want the private sector to be greedy for these things, and the public sector is the private sector's preferred way of getting them. It's the whole point, not a dirty trick.

[drogulus]

   
     McConnell, Ryan Challenge Trump to Disavow White Supremacists

     See, no need to get Cruz into it. This is not a bad opening salvo for the counter coup plotters.

     I don't know if Trump has been informed about the need for a slush fund to keep his delegates sweet. The heat is on, and it's going to get hotter as we get closer to Cleveland.

[Pat B]

McConnell, Ryan Challenge Trump to Disavow White Supremacists

"This party does not prey on people's prejudices," [Ryan] continued. "We appeal to their highest ideals."

I have a new-found respect for Paul Ryan if he managed to keep a straight face while he said that.

[drogulus]

"This party does not prey on people's prejudices," [Ryan] continued. "We appeal to their highest ideals."

I have a new-found respect for Paul Ryan if he managed to keep a straight face while he said that.

     The delegate count is a damn good reason to keep a straight face. The magic number is 1237, Trump will either just get over that or just under, but the actual first ballot doesn't come until procedural challenges are resolved about who gets seated. I think they can strip away a few and it might be enough to throw the balloting into the Twilght Zone. After the first ballot Trump support will erode IME.

[Madiel]

     All public infrastructure is built for private interests to take advantage, that's its justification.

Exactly. Any time the government builds a road, it's so that private people will use it. It's not a government-employees-only road.

[Brahmsian]

In Canada the elected Government is that issued from the party that garnered a win in most ridings. If the total ridings won exceeded 50% you had a majority government.

Or simply put:  Whomever Ontario and Quebec decide to vote for.

[Jo498]

Exactly. Any time the government builds a road, it's so that private people will use it. It's not a government-employees-only road.

To my knowledge there is also very clear empirical evidence that most infrastructure is provided better and cheaper if build by "the government". Sure, states that were on the border of failing like Romania (sorry, Florestan, but this seems to be the case) going from a dictatorship to some metastable state teeming with corruption are simply not very good examples.
The best (public) infrastructure I have experienced was in countries like Germany, France and Switzerland. And the catastrophic failure of the privatization of e.g. trains and water in Britain is well known (Of course there are many "no-true-scotsman"-replies to that: These were corrupt government cronies, not "real" private enterprise).

[Madiel]

To my knowledge there is also very clear empirical evidence that most infrastructure is provided better and cheaper if build by "the government". Sure, states that were on the border of failing like Romania (sorry, Florestan, but this seems to be the case) going from a dictatorship to some metastable state teeming with corruption are simply not very good examples.
The best (public) infrastructure I have experienced was in countries like Germany, France and Switzerland. And the catastrophic failure of the privatization of e.g. trains and water in Britain is well known (Of course there are many "no-true-scotsman"-replies to that: These were corrupt government cronies, not "real" private enterprise).

The biggest problem is that empirical evidence is not often used. I think I may have already said it in this thread, but what ought to happen is an examination of each individual case - is this particular thing more efficiently provided publically, or privately?

The answer may very well different for different kinds of things. I would suspect that most physical infrastructure is more efficiently dealt with by the public sector, but I wouldn't assume it.

And it needs to be a proper examination of ALL the costs. It's far too easy to look at the costs that are easily quantifiable, reduce those, and declare that something is now cheaper when in fact all that's happened is that the costs have been externalised, and for society as a whole it isn't any cheaper at all.  There's not much point in reducing taxes if society as a whole pays more for the service anyway.

[Jo498]

One fairly simple point is that the government can borrow money usually much cheaper than any private company. Government also does not need to make a profit. There is a lot of talk about wasteful governmental bureaucracies but all big companies also contain "wasteful" structures.
Of course, general comparisons are very difficult and it is often not clear how much public infrastructure or research was actually used by successful private providers (or after privatization). Many privatizations were so obviously fraudulent; the infrastructure had been built before with publich money, then the company was privatized and let the infrastructure rot away and the government had to help out not to let the service cease altogether.

Today one of the most infuriating things is nuclear power. To my knowledge there has never been any nuclear power plant built without (usually huge amounts of) public money. Of course almost all of the nuclear research (that made such plants possible at all) was also funded with public money. Then energy providers were privatized. The plants had been paid for and provided very cheap energy, big payday for those companies and huge dividends. Now in Germany all plants are going to be shut down eventually. But the energy companies do not have enough money left for the huge costs the deconstruction and the care for nuclear waste etc. is goin to cost. That money rests now with the people who were paid dividends 10 years ago or so. So now the government tries to make deals that those companies are forced to pay at least some of the "external and (almost) eternal costs" of nuclear power but in light of the experiences we have had so far with the problems of storage of nuclear waste it is extremely likely that most of those costs will be paid by the taxpayers.

[The new erato]

Privatization of profits, socialization of costs is the secret of much private wealth.