Matt Yglesias

67 Responses to “Government Good and Bad?”

1. Rob Duncan Says:
   August 14th, 2008 at 7:25 pm

   Which schools on military babes?

2. James Gary Says:
   August 14th, 2008 at 7:33 pm

   I hear the bikini-contest training is top-notch.

3. gbh Says:
   August 14th, 2008 at 7:34 pm

   this is going to be fun

4. DHN Says:
   August 14th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

   The Social Security Administration delivers benefits promptly and efficiently.

5. nicholas jarrett Says:
   August 14th, 2008 at 7:39 pm

   Perhaps a small point, but many residents that experienced the recent and massive Big Sur fire in California would disagree with your statement that “We fight forest fires with extraordinary skill . . .”
   Although there were certainly many brave and dedicated firefighters, the usual inter-agency power struggles and significant and poorly implemented emergency curtailing of residents basic rights certainly failed to rate as extraordinarily skilled.

6. latts Says:
   August 14th, 2008 at 7:44 pm

   I deal with state government, not the feds, and I agree that some departments are better-run than others (although at the state level, the military agencies are a real pain in the ass, lemme tell ya)– certain parts of general services and all of finance/administration, as well as the comptroller’s office, are on the ball IME, for example. It’s true that social services are often a disaster, mostly due to uncertain-at-best funding and [IMNSHO] a certain lack of political savvy among many of the staff, which probably contributes to the short-funding problems. But there’s no particular reason that a given department must be inefficient (allowing for bad management’s potential to wreak havoc anywhere); clear objectives and reliable support for stated objectives go a long way toward effectiveness. Of course, the scary thing about healthcare is that so many people would actually want it to fail, so designing it with the low-key efficiency of Social Security or finding a motive as compelling to the governing classes as protecting wealth-building institutions (in the case of the Fed) seems nearly impossible.

7. ferd Says:
   August 14th, 2008 at 7:51 pm

   Camoukinis, for the military babe schools.

   http://www.daisymaze.com/storeimages/enlarge/600410.jpg

8. Swopa Says:
   August 14th, 2008 at 7:53 pm

   … and I hear good things about the schools the DOD runs on military babes.

   Well, it’s hardly surprising that your mind wanders in certain directions now that you have to spend all day working at a desk in the CAP offices.

9. ferd Says:
   August 14th, 2008 at 7:53 pm

   Just trying to help out.

10. Teve Torbes Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 8:01 pm

    The military is well-run in the sense that it does military things very well – nobody blows stuff up better! But one of the main reasons they can do that is they get a mind-blowingly enormous budget. So, yes, they do a good job, but not necessarily an efficient, cost-effective job. Obviously, that kind of approach isn’t going to work for healthcare.

11. Rob Mac Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 8:06 pm

    A couple of days ago I posted a comment on the Megan post that seems to have gone down the memory hole, which I find a tad suspicious. Anyway, the point I made, which I’ll make again briefly, is that any sufficiently large organization will experience some problems with overly rigid bureaucracy. This is as true in the private sector as in the public. Anyone who as worked in an office at a large company like GE or AT&T can tell stories about the absurd inefficiencies they witness on a daily basis.

    Also, private health insurers and hospital billing operations aren’t actually known for their wonderful customer service.

12. Joel Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 8:11 pm

    “but also good skills and good police departments.”

    Obviously not one of the skil . . . er . . . schools Matt attended.

13. WillieStyle Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 8:17 pm

    Matt one of the things I love about you is your delightful typos. Don’t listen to the haters man. Don’t ever change.

14. mamayaga Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 8:34 pm

    “In terms of the military running health care, though, the Veterans’ Administration provides excellent health care”

    The military does NOT run the VA — it’s a separate agency, and not nearly as well-funded as DOD. Some might even suspect its relative lack of funding is intentional, since it regularly outscores private health systems on just about all measures of quality.

15. eric k Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 8:48 pm

    Besdies mentioning the many well run government agencies the other thing Libertarians ignore is how many lousy private sector companies are. For every annecdote about the DMV messing something up you can bring up many examples from a cable TV company or Cell phone company.

    On the other side of the coin even well run companies generally get to pick and choose where they do business a luxury government agencies don’t have. UPS and Fed-Ex are great at what they do but I’d challenege them to deliver mail to ever address in America for 42 cents per letter.

16. Chris Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 8:57 pm

    I only wish to point out that military schools educate ugly people as well as anyone else.

17. Maynard Handley Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 9:01 pm

    “but do you have any thoughts regarding the fact that the well run government agencies you mention are all military?”

    Of course the military have the great advantage that they can suppress information regarding their venality, corruption and incompetence substantially more aggressively than can other government agencies.

    cf http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/2008/07/new-book-expose.html

18. Syd B Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 9:02 pm

    Matt, shouldn’t you be doing your tour in the Marine Corps, going balls deep in the Big Sandy?

    The Marine Corp needs a few tough pundits

19. Sean Peters Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 10:08 pm

    … my point wouldn’t be to say that government-run health care would necessarily be good…

    First of all, we need to stop talking about “government-run health care”. No one is even discussing the idea of the government providing your actual health care. What we’re talking about is government-run health insurance. They’re not the same thing, and by blurring the line between the two, we’re buying into the whole “socialized medicine” theme put out by the GOP as a scare tactic. The idea is for Uncle Sam to put Blue Cross out of business, not your family doctor.

    Of course, there’s a pretty strong argument in favor of changing the way the actual health care business works, too – as Matt frequently points out, we are prescribed a lot of ineffective services because doctors are paid by the service. But that’s a separate issue. Let’s get everyone covered first… and then work on a different model for the actual health care business. But to make that happen, we’re going to have to get people to understand that we are working on fixing the health insurance business, not the health care.

20. thejerz Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 10:13 pm

    I think Megan was referring to the Fed contracting the money supply during the Great Depression, making it worse. Yeah, that was bad. But since then, the Fed hasn’t messed up on that level, and is a lot better than what we had before – calling up J. P. Morgan and asking him to intervene.
    And, it is to be noted, not every DMV is created equal. The DMV is traditionally seen as a place for patronage, which is what makes it so miserable. In my home state, New Jersey, once they decided to make it run efficiently, it actually did. Now I can be in and out in ten minutes. It’s really beautiful.

21. Thomas Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 10:28 pm

    Matt should discuss the performance of the FBI.

22. cmholm Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 10:31 pm

    The DoD school system is excellent, and was, even in my day. As a former military brat, I feel entitled to run with the “military babes” meme, but it leaves me with so many choices, I’m catatonic.

23. Glaivester Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

    First off, I would reject the premise. One of the examples I cited of an effective public institution is the Federal Reserve system. The very same conservatives who seem certain that the government would botch even the most minor regulatory tasks have pretty much no problem with the idea of the Fed setting interests rates that do an enormous amount to control the overall level of employment, GDP growth, and inflation in the country.

    Not Ron Paul. Not the Austrian economists.

24. Glaivester Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

    And not me.

25. Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 12:47 am

    Alan Greenspan was an incompetent boob. So the Federal Reserve is just like any other business or entity.

26. Nick Kaufman Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 12:49 am

    I would just like to question the optimism about good government.

    Distrust in government is one of the few places where modern conservatism has valid intellectual places to make.

    There are basically two problems with government.

    1. Rent-seeking in all kinds of variations; special interests, bureaucrats and politicians using a collective good in order to promote particularistic agendas.

    Now Matt used the military as an example of good government, but the military is full of inefficiencies and rent-seeking behavior, a prototypical case for which is the example of Air-force he’s so rightly criticized.

    2. Lack of information and unintended consequences. Even in cases where rent-seeking is limited, government does not necessarily act in an environment of perfect information which may lead to unintended consequences. That’s why the markets should prefer wherever they can be competitive regardless of whether our normative values oblige us to intervene. To put it differently, in an ideal world our desire to help poor people go to college or have health-care is better accomplished through redistributive policies in a framework of free markets. Give poor people vouchers, low interest loans direct assistance what have you, but don’t try to provide the direct service.

    Now, that cannot be accomplished all the time, some times markets are oligopolistic or monopolistic and government may have a role to play. In that case go for it, but carefully. But do bear in mind that all kind of things may go wrong and inefficiencies might exist.

    IF these inefficiencies do exist, it might not change the calculation or the desirability of a certain normative value we want to promote; eg. even if government health care or the army are inefficient, we live with the costs.

    The problem with many modern conservatives -especially libertarians- is that they take these valid points and insist on a dogmatic denial of any government intervention. In my mind, a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted an offhand denial is not.

27. Nick Kaufman Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 12:53 am

    Ah. I just hate it so much I cannot edit here. Sorry, there are some words missing there…

28. derrida derider Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 1:04 am

    Yep, the American military and big businees are more efficient than, say, European ones. And American government services are, on the whole, a damn sight less efficient than European ones.

    The reason for both is the same. In Europe the military and corporates are both low status things while government service is very prestigious. So the best and brightest there go into government. In the US, its the other way around.

    In the long run, the really expensive thing for America is how it has let the status of government schoolteachers slip.

29. pseudonymous in nc Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 2:33 am

    Not Ron Paul. Not the Austrian economists. And not me.

    Which leaves the entire set of ’sane people’ untouched,

30. Christopher M Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 2:49 am

    I consistently (across a number of years and a number of different towns) get much, much better service at the Post Office than at UPS. I generally enjoy dealing with the Post Office. My carriers are generally friendly and go out of their way to be helpful. I don’t deal with FedEx enough to know what they’re like, so I don’t know if UPS is just unusually awful.

31. perfectlyGoodInk Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 3:21 am

    I would say that Nick left out a third problem of government. It’s a monopoly.

32. Chris Goff Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 4:37 am

    The only problem with this argument is that the Fed is NOT a government agency. It is basically a private bank given power by the government, and its Board of Governors appointed by the President with consultation with the Senate. This is very important, because it reduces the amount of political machinations at the Fed, though Greenspan has been widely accused of manipulating interest rates to support Republican candidates from time to time.

    That said, there are lots of functions that are much better administered by boring bureaucrats than profit-driven executives. Call it socialism, but we are mostly pretty happy with our “socialist” fire dept., police, etc. Private corporations by definition want a cut of the revenues, rather than reinvesting in the organization. This is why the HMOs are currently the leeches on the underbelly of our healthcare system. I would rather have boring paper pushers running it, as with SCHIP and Medicare.

33. beowulf Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 6:20 am

    In Russia, military does not runs schools on babes— oh I’ll punch out now.

    Here’s a website that allows one to engage in comparative politics– i.e. deciding which country has the hottest female soldiers.
    http://irandefence.net/showthread.php?t=29

    I commend those nations with the strategic acumen (looking at you Israel) to allow servicewomen to keep their hair long.

    Oh and what everyone else said.. VA health care is astonishingly well run, the Chair Force sucks and Megan’s an idiot.

34. Mac Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 7:01 am

    Holy shit, man, don’t you ever proofread?

35. passing thru Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 7:16 am

    just-in-time inventory and computerized supply chain management has one hell of a lot more to do with shorter recessions of late than the floundering clowns at the fed.

36. mwg Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 7:23 am

    Mac: that’s a rhetorical question, right?

37. Splotto Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 8:05 am

    Hello:

    You severely overestimate the effect the FED actions have on the market.

    I urge you to read Dr. Hussmans commentary on the FED.

    http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc070917.htm

    There’s no question that the Fed’s decision will have a market impact. This is not because Federal Reserve operations matter, but because investors believe they matter. The total amount of U.S. bank reserves affected by FOMC operations is less than $45 billion, and only the “excess” portion of that – typically about $2 billion dollars – is what determines the overnight Federal Funds Rate. Meanwhile, the total amount of borrowings through the “discount window” – though higher than in recent years – still amounts to only about $3 billion.

    There is no well defined “monetary transmission mechanism” by which these minuscule amounts affect bank lending. Yes, during periods of crisis, the Fed has an important role to play in providing day-to-day liquidity so banks can meet depositor withdrawals. But aside from this short-term variation in the monetary base (which we saw, for example, around the “year 2000” turn), there is not even a slight relationship between bank reserves and total bank lending. Indeed, any remnant of that relationship was wiped out in the early 1990’s, when reserve requirements were removed on all bank deposits other than checking accounts.

    To believe that the Fed operations matter, you have to believe that a $13 trillion economy is controlled by a few billion dollars of reserves and discount window borrowings, none of which vary materially from year to year.

    The notion of a powerful Fed is not knowledge born of analysis, but belief born of repetition. Stop to think about how you learned that the Fed controls the economy. Not that interest rates are important (which is certainly true), but specifically, that the Fed is important. I learned it in college, from the “money multiplier” theory that links bank reserves and bank lending (obsolete since the early 1990’s when reserve requirements were largely eliminated). Some investors learn it by hearing that the Fed “controls interest rates” and by quietly equating “interest rates” with “Federal Reserve.” Some investors learn it by seeing economic outcomes that follow Fed moves “with a long and variable lag” (as one would learn that the sun rises because the rooster crows).

    Once we believe that the Fed is important, we look for confirmation in the same way people read their horoscopes and remember only the accurate ones. If recessions follow expansions and expansions follow recessions, then any magical spell that is routinely invoked during recessions will also be routinely followed by expansions (though perhaps with a lag). Similarly, any wave of the wand that routinely accompanies late-stage expansions near full capacity (as Fed tightenings do) will typically be followed by economic softness.

    Correlation doesn’t imply causation. We need to ask: what is the mechanism by which Fed actions have these effects? If we’re convinced that the Fed matters, we can’t stop at belief or argument – we need consider reasonable mechanisms, and then actually test them against data. If investors don’t do this, they have nothing but superstition. They quietly equate the black cat, or the ladder, or the broken mirror, or Ben Bernanke with an outcome, without looking for any testable relationships that link cause and effect.

    And see below on liquidity…

    http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc071204.htm

38. bbartlog Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 8:22 am

    The very same conservatives … no problem with the idea of the Fed setting interest rates

    As someone else already pointed out, there is a substantial minority within the conservative movement that disagrees.

    But I do think your broader point is a good one – even if government agencies are by and large pernicious, there is still a wide range of possible degrees of badness. And it makes a big difference whether you genuinely try to recruit the best and brightest for your project, or staff it with horse show judges…

39. djm Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 9:22 am

    Leaving aside the VA being civilian-run, DoD schools are not run by the military either. DoDEA is run by civilians. Just because it is “military” doesn’t mean the services handle it by themselves. DoD has almost 700,000 civilian employees (plus all those contractors) and the chain of command for many of them is civilian or mixed.

40. Doh Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 9:23 am

    Another enormous difference between the military and other agencies is the military budget has almost no contraints– that’s why they are starting to take over some functions of the State Dept., because no one wants to give the State Dept. money, but no one wants to deny the military money. The entire budget for our foreign service would show up as a rounding error in the DoD budget.

41. tps12 Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 9:25 am

    Cosign Teve Torbes and strongly cosign eric k. The Byzantine mismanagement pervading the military bureaucracy is legendary to the point of being a cliché at this point: ever heard of M*A*S*H? It still manages to be effective due to massive funding. Meanwhile the USPS, public libraries, and yes, the DMV face constant budget constraints and still perform extremely well at fulfilling their (enormous) mandates.

42. Angry Voter Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 10:01 am

    The Social Security administration is actually a directly relevant proof for your argument. Social Security checks go our regularly and easily, and if you call them up for a reason, you can solve problems fairly easily. And they also fo a fine job in understanding that, because of who they serve, they need multiple ways into the agency

43. dougR Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 10:12 am

    There’s no evidence that ANY of the govt. services that were privatized under Cheney are being delivered either better or cheaper than they were by government. But “better and cheaper” was never the point with these maggots (well, it was a ‘talking’ point, but that’s about it). De-funding government, impairing its ability to function as intended, and rewarding loyal contributors was the point.

    FEMA under James Lee Witt was renowned for its alacrity and efficiency in delivering services in a number of emergency situations, and there’s no reason (well, theoretically anyway) that the entire government couldn’t function at that level.

    But, you have to WANT government to function. The ACTUAL manifestation of the conservative government ideal is a hamstrung, ineffective, under-funded agency lavishing no-bid, cost-plus contracts on wealthy conservative camp-followers.

    The true test for “conservatives” is always, look at what they DO, look at what they have done, and regard what they say as gilib distraction. And I used the word “maggots” above because to me it best describes what conservatives are, and have been, regarding what used to be a fairly robust economy and a fairly efficient national government.

44. LaFollette Progressive Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 10:52 am

    “political elites wouldn’t stand for staffing (the military) with incompetents and know-nothings.”

    I dunno… Rumsfeld lasted for 6 years, didn’t he? But then he wasn’t really military. The civilian wing of the DoD has rarely been noted for excelling at anything other than money-wasting.

    I’d say you’re half right. the military tends to promote only the most efficient, highly competent know-nothings.

45. pb Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 11:41 am

    that article you linked about the VA is a perfect fluff piece. any medical student, resident, or staff member who has ever worked in a VA can tell you what kind of care you get there. sure in some of the NSQUIP studies there is some benchmark quality data that says the VA is doing a good job, but do any of the studies tell you if you can get an operation started after 2 pm? or that there is generally one nurse per thirty patients! and that the vaulted computer system won’t help anything when the order that you type in the computer goes into the ether and never gets picked up by a nurse and you end up doing it yourself?

    no…

    after stepping foot in a VA none of you would ever want to actually be taken care of there…the VA is an example of what happens when government takes over something but doesn’t care about what happens to it. and honestly the system will not be able to handle the thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan war vets that are going to come down the pipeline in a few years. it is running on the edge as we speak

46. Linus Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 11:53 am

    A month or so back I wrote a letter to the CEO of the company who made my last pair of sneakers complaining that since they bought the brand quality has declined. Less than two weeks later I got two new pairs of shoes in the mail: a pair of hiking shoes (value: $115) and a pair of eco-sneakers (value: $60).

    The trouble with government services is that unless they endanger your life or ruin your reputation you generally have no recourse: nightmarishly inconveniencing you merits no compensation, apparently.

47. ricky Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 12:04 pm

    The military is well run??? The military is about the least efficient branch of the federal government. It’s so inefficiently run, it can’t even provide numbers for its own efficiency–when was the last time we were even able to complete an audit of its financial mess?

    Does it do its job well? Sure. But I’m pretty sure if you gave the Department of Education $400 billon a year it could show some pretty remarkable results, too.

48. olo Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    Did you type, er, mistype “babes” to generate big numbers of comments?

49. Selma Bouvier Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 12:14 pm

    Look, I want universal heath care, but, the level of hypocrisy and willed-ignorance Matt is demonstrating on these questions (re: problems with govt. run programs) is mind blowing.

    Let’s review, shall we, Matt?

    Hmmmmmm. New York City has an elaborate public school system. Run by the local government. Most kids go through it. Yet Matt’s Mommy and Daddy chose instead to forego the government-run schools for the private sector. Matt attended The Dalton School (current tuition $31,200 a year), the single most elite prep school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. (Their non-union teacher are paid worse, but, oh, that’s another story.)

    When college came did Matt go to SUNY Albany or SUNY Binghamton or any of New York state’s other actually very solid public colleges? Nope. Our boy went to Harvard! Pretty excusive, pretty pricey, pretty damn private sector!

    Evidently what government offered wasn’t good enough for Matt. And, you know, it turns out his family was right to spend well over a half million dollars on him as, lo and behold, he soon had a job with the Altantic! A job not that many grads of public (you know, the government run) schools would ever dream of getting in their early twenties.

    Matt’s not a driver (so doesn’t know just how polite and competent those folks at busy urban DMVs can be) thus he really had his first contact with a government bureaucracy when he was in his twenties. He had to — get this — recycle to meet the city D.C.’s rudimentary requirements. Lo and behold, Matt couldn’t do it! Too tough or the bureaucracy was too bad or unsympathetic something! Oh, Matt raged and raged like the most indignant libertarian yahoo forbidden to carry an AK-47 in public. Those damn government folks were incompetent and unreasonable! Boo hoo hoo!

    Well, then. Now the kid who avoided public schools (at a cost of hundreds and hundreds of thousands and dollars), public colleges, the DMV and the basic requirements of Goddamn urban recycling wants to pretend he has total faith in government-run programs.

    I’m calling bullshit, little prince.

    If your family had any faith in them you’d have gone to public schools and wouldn’t be enjoying the career you are. When push came to shove your family spent tons of cash to go private sector and keep you from the lines,the innefficiency, the (racially diverse, economically diverse, culturally diverse, unscreened) masses and — brace yourself know — unionized workers.

    Again: our health care system sucks. It needs to change. But anyone who’s dealt with the DMV or an incompetent public school teacher or a govt. bureaucracy knows there are things to not just fear but actively dread. Alas, that’s the nature of government bureaucracies.

    And for Matt to pretend otherwise when he’s led the live of a Romney or Bush, avoiding every government agency and school for the most elite private sector alternative is incredibly hypocritical.

    The fear, Matt, is that in the not too distant future your elderly parents will be in the hospital and you’ll be dealing with a structure that’s run like, oh, recycling in D.C. Or much, much worse. And with truly grave and horrific life-and-death consequences.

    As progressives (the majority of us who, yeah, haven’t spent our young lives milking connections and then having Mom and Dave write enormous checks so we could avoid all government-run public institutions) we have to both recognize people’s fear about government-run agencies and take steps to see that the new systesm put in place really do work better than, oh say, the NYC D.M.V. of the 1980s.

    Matt’s a smart boy, but he’s got to start being a bit honest about his life. The kid’s had a great career so far. Especially for someone so young. And that’s in large part because his rich family always went private sector, avoiding any and all urban government-bureaucracies.

    Deal with it, Matt. Deal with it and the issues it raises about government. You’ll then be in a much better posistion to argue for policies this country desperately needs.

50. Tyro Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 12:23 pm

    The reason the VA has a bad reputation among a lot of doctors is because they don’t respect doctors in the VA. Doctors in the VA punch in and punch out, working 8 hour days. Now, it seems that the VA provides pretty good outcomes with that sort of organizational structure. However, the lifestyle and professional style of the VA staff isn’t one that commands respect among the doctors outside of the VA, and as a consequence, this gives the VA a bad reputation, not because the quality of care is poor.

51. inthewoods Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 12:37 pm

    I think the main point I take from all these comments is that both government and the private sector can be responsible for either good or bad outcomes.

    No one has mentioned the NIH – an example, I would argue, of a good government agency. As for a bad company, we need look no further than the current situation with the banks, or a little ways back, to a company like Enron.

    As for the military being a great example of government running well, I would just point to the lost and unaccounted for $10b in Iraq and, on the private sector side, the large number (900 and counting) of private sector companies that are under some sort of investigation for fraud.

    I would argue that the worst in terms of government waste comes when the private sector and government interact – which is unavoidable. The revolving door between private corporations that do the majority of their business with the government and the private sector seems to create a huge number of problems in many sectors.

    The Fed is a terrible institution which is not a government agency, which a poster earlier pointed out.

52. Dilan Esper Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

    The only problem with this argument is that the Fed is NOT a government agency. It is basically a private bank given power by the government, and its Board of Governors appointed by the President with consultation with the Senate. This is very important, because it reduces the amount of political machinations at the Fed, though Greenspan has been widely accused of manipulating interest rates to support Republican candidates from time to time.

    That’s not really true. The Fed (or more properly, the Open Market Committee, which has the power to set monetary policy) is clearly part of the government, i.e., they have to obey the Constitution, etc. The policy is implemented through private Federal Reserve Banks that are owned by the depository banks, but that is simply a method of essentially taxing banks for the service the Fed provides. The Fed cannot go into business, change its corporate structure, etc., like private corporations do. It’s a federally controlled entity, just structured to avoid political interference.

53. jackifus Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

    One thing folks tend to ignore is our current universal healthcare program – Medicare – provides for the far more cost-efficient delivery of care than private insurers do.

    The VA hospital network, despite Walter Reed horror stories, provides the best long-term care in the country.

    Military agencies as a model for efficient government – ridiculous. They have incredible layers of bureaucracy and incompetence. We do have effective military units – definitely – but the cost for that effectiveness does not at all represent an efficient use of funds.

54. jackifus Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 3:47 pm

    One more thing to note –

    Privatization is not a remedy for government inefficiency.
    That is key. Granting government contracts to private firms does not necessarily increase efficiency. It does encourage influence-peddling and the growth of the military industrial complex.

    How many Republican “free-market” politicians actually made money outside of government contracts? VERY few.

    Cheney said of his millions – “it had nothing to do with the government.” That imbecile Lieberman should have retorted – “you made your millions from government contracts – that has EVERYTHING to do with the government”

55. Richard Steven Hack Says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 7:49 pm

    Matt: “One of the examples I cited of an effective public institution is the Federal Reserve system…”

    I can’t bring myself to comment…except: this is what you get from a kid four years out of college with a degree in philosophy and zero knowledge about anything but sports and political campaign kibitzing…

    Jesus Baron von Christ…

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