Trump - Clown Genius

[Chad]

It's just not the continuous giant dumpster fire it is always described to be.

Citation needed.

We both know I could list all the positives and it wouldn't satisfy you. There are negatives too. I don't argue against that.

I'm also suggesting that the larger the human organization the better the story is on "terrible" inefficiencies, as the larger the organization the larger the numbers in any inefficiency. However, this doesn't mean it's wildly inefficient just that the larger the organization the larger the numbers and the government is way bigger than the next largest business.

This is a good start for describing the problem, scale. Beyond this, look at the individual incentives. The larger the scale, the less individual incentives will align with the organization's goals. And the bigger the organization, the less capable it is in realigning incentives to goals. This applies to all human organizations, from churches to business to government. centralization only improves the center, by removing feedback and giving a more direct line of command. Look to the military to see this in action.

Yes, scale. It does create problems, but not having organizations of proper scale also creates other problems in a country this size.

I'm not sure scale has a lot to do with aligning an individual's goals with the organization. It's easier to identify people in a larger organization that don't have the same goals as the organization, but that's just because 100 people in a very large organization stick out more to people thousands of miles away than 2 people from a small organization.

And, again, it's the scaling up of numbers/measurements that throughs humans for a loop. Finding out a large organization has 400 people doing some inefficient task seems like a lot until you take the size of an organization into account. All I'm suggesting is the big numbers screw with our heads and the mistakes/inefficiencies seem way worse than what they are. This doesn't mean the mistakes/inefficiencies aren't bad and shouldn't be identified and solved if possible. Though, this will never be 100%, which always seems to be the benchmark those that say, "government needs to be run like a business" use and then imply is occurring in business.

Where I will agree is that large organizations have a tougher time changing, redefining goals, etc. just because of their size.

Something needs to change. We are operating a 21st century country on a 19th century premise. A lot of what the government does is extremely complicated and very gray, which means it's difficult to identify the goal/win/achievement. This is why I hate it when people say it needs to be run more like a business. What 98% of businesses do is basic arithmetic compared to these government projects. The Fortune 500 companies I have worked for have well defined goals and they are still varying degrees of messy, so it's no surprise the government with bigger, more difficult, and sometimes less defined goals is too. Then throw in Congress screwing with how organizations function naturally (e.g., The NIH director only controls some of the specific health institutes under NIH. Institutes such as Cancer get their funding directly from Congress, thus no control by the director. Makes it hard to steer the ship.). It's just humans being humans.

If this is correct, maybe combining nearly unlimited funds and poorly defined goals could be recognized as a problem by a rational, neutral observer, rather than a messy solution.

The thing is, I want science to be funded. I want cancer to be researched, I want roads to be maintained, I even want people on welfare to have food and shelter. And I don't mind paying for it.

I'm suggesting the poorly defined goals aren't usually due to ineptitude or malfeasance, but because the problem itself has no hard 100% solution. Many of the problems the government is trying to solve are squishy. They aren't like making 500,000 tons of steel, where each part of the process can be defined and measured.

What I object to, is oversight of oversight. The HR costs of having an HR department dedicated to the needs of the HR department. Continuing with a project that is directly contradictory to the other projects currently running, because it is both funded and approved. All of this is the reality of government today.

I'm sure this happens, but what would be the cost to stop 90% of this? Would it be more than just letting it play out?

And, how much of this is really going on? $2B? $5B? $20B? $50B? If even if it's $50B that's still only 1.25% of total government expenditures.

My argument isn't that we shouldn't try to limit this, just that it's not the end of civilization like so many make it out to be.

[jennypenny]

As crazy as the hiring/firing of Scaramucci was, it sounds like Kelly is having a positive effect on the WH. They're behaving like they've had a substitute teacher for six months and now they finally have a real teacher.

I don't like Scaramucci, but he'd get my vote for worst week ever this week (hired, divorced, humiliated, fired).

McCain's healthcare vote was mostly about giving Trump a final and very public middle finger before being forced to retire. Some are speculating that if McCain's prognosis is bad, he might feel free to speak out more against Trump. I wonder if Trump would have trouble responding in kind since he'd look like he was bullying a dying war hero. If Kelly is in charge of the twitter feed you won't see any anti-McCain tweets.

It's concerning that, with Priebus gone, there isn't a direct connection to the republican party. "Pence doesn't count" is what was communicated to me. I heard more bad stuff about him that I can't repeat. Suffice it to say that he's competent, well-spoken, polite with everyone, and respectful of the press pool ... and they all still dislike him. I was on the Pence-for-Prez bandwagon but I'm definitely off it now. I'd rather see them rein in Trump enough for people to do their jobs.

The military may not follow the transgender order. While trivial in the scheme of military concerns at the moment, it would be a political crisis for the military to intentionally not follow the orders of the commander in chief.


News from the democratic side this week ...

Apparently Kushner keeps meticulous notes and copies his staff on everything. Once the names of all the attendees of the Don Jr Russian meeting were made known and a timeline was established, the Dems on the investigating committee realized that those same names had popped up in the investigation of Fusion, Awan, and DWS. Suddenly everything is behind closed doors. The talk is that 'it's dirty all around' and won't work to anyone's advantage to make it all public. Most expect Awan to roll and DWS will be forced to fall on her sword.

I questioned why the Dems were still putting Schumer and Pelosi out there as the face of the party. I thought their best chance was to put out more likable representatives like Harris, Booker, and others. I was told that the Dems are purposely sending the old guard out to quell some of the more emotional rhetoric and put on a more distinguished face. They are nervous that they've been waving the resistance banner too much, and the fear is that they might incite too many fringe groups and the movement will end up taking over the party. They don't want to end up with their own Trump-like candidate in 2020 who speaks mainly to the 'resist' base. That makes sense. I guess the picture of someone like Chelsea Handler on stage at a debate wearing a pink pussy hat has scared them straight.

There's a lot of infighting over Perez's about-face on giving pro-life democratic candidates financial support. Most of the public reaction has been negative. What I don't think many of the people complaining realize is that a big part of the reason he changed his mind was because of a recent Pew poll on abortion. Most only read the headline that showed an uptick in support for abortion. What people seemed to miss was the breakdown by race. Note the hispanic breakdown ...



That's making some in the democratic party nervous, especially with their intention to run on amnesty/immigration issues next cycle.


That's enough for now. I'm not sure how many of you are even interested in this stuff.

[Dragline]

"Palace Intrigue" indeed. Like an even stranger version of House of Cards.

But it does look like the tweet-storm has hit a lull. I wonder how long that will last. There is a certain sense of exhaustion after the week of the Mooch.

[jennypenny]

I've never seen House of Cards but so many people have referenced it I might have to watch an episode or two.

[Riggerjack]

The military may not follow the transgender order. While trivial in the scheme of military concerns at the moment, it would be a political crisis for the military to intentionally not follow the orders of the commander in chief.

I don't listen to news anymore. But was there an order? I heard there was a tweet. I realize the media doesn't know or care about the difference, but you can bet you ass the military does.

There was a bit of resistance from the military over don't ask, don't tell, and that was a real order. Still it took 10 months from the order to the last briefing of my short career. I don't like Clinton, but give him his due, he was a solidly competent politician. He worked, and got it done. I see no such effort coming out of the current white House.

[BRUTE]

too bad they never made more than 2 seasons of HoC.

Hispanics are catholic. who would've thought they dislike abortion.

brute finds jennypenny's analysis of the theater very intriguing and interesting.

in other news, John McCain has the exact type of brain tumor that the Ketogenic Diet is reported to help with/heal - glioblastoma. example study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2874558

since brute doesn't care super much for John McCain and has 0% chance of reaching him, mentioning it here is about as much action as he will take on this. maybe jennypenny has her ways and would prefer McCain to stick around a bit longer

[George the original one]

As crazy as the hiring/firing of Scaramucci was

Not crazy if it got the desired results of shaking up the staff, making the people you were saddled with go away of their own volition. My feeling is that it went exactly as Trump expected it to go.

[jennypenny]

@RJ--They are definitely drafting the order ('he wants to sign something'). DoD is subtly communicating that they won't follow it in an attempt to get the administration to back off. I can't see Trump backing down without good reason (meaning getting something in return). Maybe he'll end up trading it for a concession on the new military budget, but who knows. I've given up trying to predict what he'll do.

@brute--Catholics are pretty evenly split on most issues including unrestricted access to abortion and political affiliation. They skewed towards Trump and W a little more, but favored Obama in both of those elections. Hispanic Catholics vote more democratic, in line with the tendency to live in more urban areas, but adopt a more typical US Catholic view once established. (meaning that hispanics who enter the ranks of the middle and upper middle class and have the money to donate to political parties tend to lean more republican than the hispanic catholic population at large -- always a consideration in politics)

[Campitor]

This doesn't mean the mistakes/inefficiencies aren't bad and shouldn't be identified and solved if possible. Though, this will never be 100%, which always seems to be the benchmark those that say, "government needs to be run like a business" use and then imply is occurring in business.

@ Chad

This is one of the counter arguments I often hear when I promote my view of limited government. But let me state for the record that I 100% agree with you. Any enterprise, regardless if its government or private business, will be run inefficiently because humans run them; we are imperfect hence our institutions are imperfect. But a private business has to contend with the inherent competition of the free market which forces them to be as efficient as humanly possible and to correct their business model when their products/services aren't desired. Government has no competition therefore its allowed to act like the bull in the china shop if it so desires. So in my opinion the only means of forcing a government to act responsibly is to limit its money and not letting it borrow or print its way out of bad behavior.

And if we both agree that nothing can ever be 100% or that problems are "squishy" then why aren't we setting limits on what the government can possibly solve? If US government is spending 1.3 Trillion on social services that provides for the general welfare of 86.5% of its population how much more should it spend to try and wipe out the last 13.5% in poverty? 1 billion? 5 billion? 500 billion? We spend 500 billion on National Defense - how much more should we spend to make us 1% more safe? Or can we agree that we will never be 100% safe and forego any increase in defense spending trying to eliminate every enemy that may crawl out from under a rock?

And the Lewis article - it was a super interesting read. But it left me shaking my head in disgust. If the DoE is so important and vital, why did DoE employees "wait" for Trump people to show up and why isn't it mandatory for every President elect or his representatives to meet with them? Every incoming POTUS should have requirements in regards to briefings with the departments they will oversee - if they don't meet then he/she can't be sworn in (amendment needed) or their cabinet's budgets aren't approved. More Government stupidity - a private business running like this would be bankrupt by the end of their fiscal year.

[IlliniDave]

I've never seen House of Cards but so many people have referenced it I might have to watch an episode or two.

I pretty much got hooked right away and "political drama" is pretty far down my list genre favorites. They manage to reflect some of the dynamics/issues of current politics without any heavy-handed taking of one side over the other (i.e., red vs blue). If you like conspiracy and intrigue, you'd probably like it.

[Riggerjack]

I'm sure this happens, but what would be the cost to stop 90% of this? Would it be more than just letting it play out?

And, how much of this is really going on? $2B? $5B? $20B? $50B? If even if it's $50B that's still only 1.25% of total government expenditures.

Well, let me try to put my experiences down, to show where I'm coming from.

I was enlisted in the army. My stories would be typical of the experience, no special insights here. Other than mentioning that I drove a 1936 deuce and a half, that had been disassembled, and frame off restored several times. This would definitely be a false economy.

When I got out, I went into cabling, and the third company I worked for sent me to the VA hospital to work as a service tech. My main job was to rewire the existing cat 3 cable to go from a token ring network to a 10baseT network. In the late 90's, they were doing away with the mainframe/dumb terminals and getting desktops. I had to coordinate this effort to ensure I completed the conversion before a different company came thru to rip out all the cat 3 cable, and rewire with cat 5, build out the telco closets, and replace the PCs. I was on this project for 8 months before I was replaced by the company I worked for. The job was scheduled for 2 more years. This is where I asked why I was doing work that would literally interfere with the functionality of everyone on campus, only to have everything I was doing replaced by the next interference months later. The IT director explained that since both projects had been approved and funded, both had to be completed. The only way to complete my work was if it was done before the network was replaced, thus the coordination.

A year or 2 later, I was running a crew rewiring a local hospital. It was winter, work was slowing, so the skilled techs from other crews were kept busy on service contracts. This is how I got Tony on my crew. Tony was lazy and a problem, but he was a good fiber optic splicer. He had just spent 2 years splicing the fiber the state ran along the Seattle highways for traffic cameras. He didn't have to pull the cables, they were already placed. This was a 45 minute job, but it was in the median of the highway, most of the time.

If I ran that job, he would have parked as close as he could, and used a cart to move his equipment (fiber splicing and testing equipment was much bigger back then.) to location, done the splices, and gone back to his van. Allowing for complications, still I would expect him to get 2-3 sites done per day.

Because i am a fool. It turns out, you can't work in the median without closing a lane, by WASHDOT policy. And, he can't close a lane by himself, that takes a crew of 3 men. And he can't do multiple sites because it takes 3 hours to close a lane, and they can't start until he is on site (because why close a lane if he won't be there?) And nobody could leave the site until the lane was open again.

So for one man to do 45 minutes work, 4 people needed to be paid all day.

I currently work in telecom engineering. Today, I completed a work order to replace a pedestal with a hand hole. This involved send someone out with a shovel, digging a hole about 18" deep around a pedestal that is about 12" around. Lift the pedestal out, replace with a hand hole case, level, and fill in the hole. End result, the customer could widen their driveway.

Now, the guy who did the digging was paid 4 hours, and these guys make $45 per hour, or so. So for him to do $180 work, and place a $50 hand hole, we billed the customer just over 8 grand, and we didn't make any money on the deal.

We didn't make any money because it took so much time for so many departments to bounce this tiny problem around and verify it wouldn't cause any issues in each department, that overall, we took a loss. ( See, this is about size of organization, not just general government bashing.)

I spent 10 years in structured cabling, I saw hundreds of businesses up close, some huge, some tiny. I got to see who was happy at their jobs, and who was miserable. Who was productive, and who was looking for any distraction. As a general rule, the bigger, the more regulated, the more established an organization is, the less happy the workers, and less likely the workers were productive.

Which leads to why these companies are as big as they are. This is worthy of a whole other thread.

My argument isn't that we shouldn't try to limit this, just that it's not the end of civilization like so many make it out to be.

And I believe that it is the end of civilization we are talking about here. Every empire ends in a financial disaster and/or war that they lose for economic reasons. Rome debased their currency when the "needs" of the empire exceeded the ability of the economy to support it. They used silver and gold rather fiat currency, but they debased it less than we have.

Bigger organizations are less efficient. Our federal government is our biggest organization. I believe it should be as small as possible. To do its work as efficiently as possible.

When I hear people endorsing more government, I feel like I'm on a barge that is already loaded beyond capacity, and still being loaded. Yes, it still floats, but will it float when the weather changes? Because if history has taught us anything, it is that the weather will change.

[Campitor]

Back to Trump the Clown/Genius...keep an eye on what he does with HUD, DOT, and Commerce. As real estate mogul, these will be the departments he will use to manipulate legislation that benefits his businesses and the coffers of his NY friends. And expect Camp David visits for strictly family getaways and Trump resort visits when he's conducting crony capitalistic deals.

[IlliniDave]

I got a kick/laugh out of Gomer Sessions standing chest deep in apparent serious national-level crimes occurring in a small radius around his office (I know he's recused from the campaign stuff specifically, but there's plenty else) and all he can think of to do is persecute people with painkiller prescriptions he thinks they shouldn't have (while the deep right of his party is howling that the federal gov't should not get between people and their doctors) and petty quid pro quo's w/so-called sanctuary cities. He's popular around here (Alabama) cause he's a home-state boy, but I cringed when Trump nominated him for a significant position. He's the embodiment of fighting the last, or wrong, war. I wonder how he escaped when it looked like Trump was going to out him. I bet there's a good story there.

And for the record I'm not making light of opiod problems, that scourge has touched my family. It's just that whipping the DEA into a froth is among the worst possible paths if one is seeking to improve the situation IMO. I think it's more about show, and upping his popularity w/the base.

[Dragline]

Oddly enough, his base (where he has been holding rallies recently) in dying or dead industrial/coal mining areas is essentially opioid central. I wonder how many of those at those rallies have relatives who are going to end up in prison in the next few years if they are lucky, or just dead if not. An unpleasant irony (as in not the least bit amusing) awaits the families of many of those people.

[IlliniDave]

Dunno where his rallies have been, but the five states with the highest deaths per capita from prescription painkillers recently were Utah, Nevada, Alaska, West Virginia, and New Mexico (not positive on the order). I think middle-aged white men and Native Americans are most susceptible. I think the poor white Trump Appalachian supporters are more likely to have troubles with meth (maybe I'm perpetuating an unfair stereotype?) and heroin.

[Chad]

@Riggerjack

Sorry about the delay in responding. I have been rather busy.

The military scenario doesn't bother me, as that false economy is created on purpose. They have to find something to do with young people waiting for a war. The whole, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop."

The other scenarios are legitimate problems to greater (VA) or lesser degrees (road and company digging issue). Those problems stem from a variety of factors (concerned citizens who don't know shit, the inertia of large organizations, poor union negotiation, loss leaders, etc.).

The problem is all of this stuff needs done and a lot of it can't be done without a large organization. You can argue that various organizations have too many people, too much bureaucracy, etc., and be right, but still have the inefficiency cost be rather insignificant with the whole of the organization. Again, the number just looks big because humans are terrible understanding actual big numbers.

I would also argue that certain groups purposefully through monkey wrenches into government work just so they can say it failed.

Concerning this inefficiency being the "end of civilization"? I just don't see it. Yes, it's a problem. Yes, it can add to the "end of civilization", but inefficiency in large organizations doesn't seem to kill historical civilizations. It seems to be more military overreach/war, inability of a civilization/country to understand where they currently fit in the world order, unable to adapt to a changing environment, etc...all of it usually resulting in a stupid war or three. We could check off #2 this century if we go to war with North Korea.

[BRUTE]

all those sound like a consequence of what Riggerjack said

[Spartan_Warrior]

How America Lost Its Mind

This article is more about the history of "post-reality", but it ties this into the rise of Trump.

[Riggerjack]

@chad. War is just expanded economics. WWII would be the classic example, but refer to Vietnam/Afghanistan for what happens when a large but inefficient force meets a much more efficient force, more effectively used.

This is how empires fall, as efficiencies decrease until the internal cohesion fails. Most empires reform after enough inefficiencies are purged. This happened, what, 5 times in the ancient Chinese empire? By the time of Mao, purging those inefficiencies also resulted in almost unimaginable numbers of civilian deaths.

So yeah, inefficiencies are an existential threat.

Then consider what is going on in social media today (Google) and what happened in the years 1855-70. Look up copperheads, and why and when we suspend habeus corpus.

I don't know if the fourth turning is the new astrology, but I am more nervous about the near future than I have been since the Berlin Wall came down.

And if we get in a shooting war with anyone who can shoot back, I will renounce all the things I said about the douchebag being less damaging than Hillary. She, at least liked her targets defenseless.

[Chad]

@riggerjack
War is expanded economics, no argument. Though, the difference between inefficiency and war is probably big concerning scale.

War = going into debt for a yacht
Inefficiency = going into debt for car

Also, again, how much is the inefficiency total right now? A few anecdotes are really just a signal to look deeper, not an ironclad case against it. And, how do these things get done without the big organizations? These are the answers that matter in determining how detrimental inefficiency is at any given point in time.

I have read a book or two , but I have no idea what Lincoln suspending habeus corpus has to do with the topic of inefficiency?