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by TheOtherHobbes 3727 days ago
>Government doesn't know how to run anything well, because the tenets of capitalism don't apply to government.

Who built the freeway system, ran the Manhattan project, created CERN, put people on the moon, and sponsored the research that led to computing and the Internet?

>The best managers of business are in the private sector where the real money is and where they have the most control.

Given the number of incredibly destructive, if not downright stupid, CEOs in recent corporate history, that's simply not a reality-based argument.

>Literally every level of the population suffers because working is no longer incentivised.

Literally every level of the population is already suffering for much the same reason. Current forms of capitalism penalise long-term strategic investment in favour of asset sweating and smash-and-grab corporate raiding that provide short-term quick-fix profits but destroy long term growth potential.

Wall St will always prefer a quick buck now to a million dollar payout fifty years from now - and that's not a smart way to run a planetary economic strategy.

3 comments

"Who built the freeway system, ran the Manhattan project, created CERN, put people on the moon, and sponsored the research that led to computing and the Internet?"

There's also all of the taxpayer-funded and govt-run basic medical research that the pharmaceutical and medical industries get a free ride on.

I just finished reading the second (paper-back) edition of Michael Lewis's Flash Boys and he has added an "Afterword" to the book that discusses the diversionary and duplicitous tactics used by Wall Street (Both HFT lobbyists and others) to re-frame the arguments he originally made in light of public discussion prompted by the book.

I found that one chapter almost as disturbing as the rest of the book.

You can add government health care to the list as well (at least for most of the west - excluding the USA).

Single payer provides better outcomes for the population at a lower cost per GDP.