[Aspos]

Twenty or so years ago Experian and FairIsaac were paid by USAID to help build credit bureau infrastructure in Kazakhstan. USAID also paid their legal departments to help draft a law which would govern the whole process. And guess what, in the result we got much fairer, more efficient, far more future-proof infra than the US has today.

Gov licenses credit bureaus and runs its own one. Banks must report to all licensed bureaus and may choose which bureau to pull reports from. This means a report from any bureau is as good as from any other one.

Having a gov player in the market effectively creates a price ceiling, so a private bureau has to sell data for less than the government-run bureau. Private bureau has to keep innovating to justify its existence and thus keep creating new products which predict creditworthiness better and better. Credit report includes all the raw information, so banks are free to compute their own score and are not bound to anything stupidly archaic and awkward such as US FICO score, don't need to rely on any external score at all. It is the XXI century, computing a credit decision out of a few hundred datapoints takes milliseconds, costs nothing. So gov-run bureau sees a fraction of a % of the load yet effectively moderates the whole market. The largest private bureau is owned by banks (like VISA used to be) and thus is working in the best interests of the banks.

Many (if not all) problems we see in the US financial sector are the result of regulatory and legislative negligence. Just some lazy folks trying to run things the way there were in the 80es.

[vundercind]

A lot of things in the US would change for the better if we installed a new government for ourselves using the techniques we have when we assist or replace foreign governments.

There’s a ton of stuff we have and do, including some fundamental stuff (our system of voting, for one) that’s known to be really bad compared to the “state of the art”. But, in part because of some of those bad elements, we only ever get to apply better solutions for others, never ourselves.

[0x5f3759df-i]

Yep, there’s a reason we didn’t give Germany and Japan our “exceptional” electoral college system.

Tech debt exists in constitutional law as well.

[Dalewyn]

The Electoral College exists as a compromise regarding two needs:

* The need to keep the Executive and Legislative Branches separate.

* The need to represent States in a manner they already agree with, for sake of brevity.

Thus the Electoral College: Composed in the same way as Congress is (plus pretending D.C. is a state) whose sole task is electing the head of the Executive Branch as representatives of the States thereof.

Japan (and Germany? I don't know enough about German politics) is based on the UK's Westminster system, which has its own pros and cons and isn't necessarily better.

[vundercind]

The idea of choosing wise locals to go judge the candidates and choose on our behalf (since a general election for president is kinda crazy—they were right about that) fell apart pretty much instantly when we started actually holding elections, making the institution all but pointless except for presenting opportunities to attack our democracy with weird procedural shit because it’s more complicated than it needs to be (see, ahem, certain recent events).

We don’t need the College to weight the vote toward states without people in them, if that’s what we want to do. Even if we accept that that’s a good goal, the College is not a good way to do it.

[Dalewyn]

The thing is it's not the citizens of a State choosing the POTUS, it's the citizens of a State choosing which candidate their State will choose for POTUS.

Remember, the US is a federation of sovereign States and POTUS as Chief Executive of the Federal government represents and is chosen by the States thereof. Each State represents its citizens respectively.

The reason the College gives more weight to less populous States is, again, the need to represent States at the federal level in a way they already agree with but separated from the Legislature. So each State gets 2 Electors plus at least 1 Elector according to their population, representing the Senators and Representatives they would have in Congress. Remember that the Senate gives equal representation to all States regardless of population; California and Rhode Island each have the same representation in the Senate.

Part of the reason Japan doesn't have an Electoral College is because they aren't as concerned about separating the Executive and Legislative Branches and they aren't a federation of sovereign States.

[comte7092]

> Remember, the US is a federation of sovereign States and POTUS as Chief Executive of the Federal government represents and is chosen by the States thereof. Each State represents its citizens respectively.

This isn’t even accurate from the perspective of 1789. The articles of confederation created a model akin to what you’ve outlined. The constitution created a quasi blend of popular representation and state level representation in the federal government as a result of several different compromises in order to form a stable national government.

That isn’t how anything effectively works today though. The federal government has undergone numerous reforms both explicitly within the constitution and implicitly without any formal constitutional changes. These include the direct election of senators, income taxes, etc but also the effective binding of presidential electors to the outcome of the popular vote within a state.

Americans today don’t think of themselves as citizens of the state of California, they think of themselves as Americans solely, the former concept being absolutely foreign and strange to them.

Finally, the EC gives very little benefit to small states. The relative impact is consistently overstated. The only place that small state over representation effectively exists is in the senate.

[vundercind]

The actual electors are basically pointless though. You can assign the electoral votes however the states decide to (some split it, et c) and that’s that. The rest is risky pageantry (and not even an entertaining sort!) and has been very nearly since day 1. The human electors have never really functioned like they were supposed to.

[0x5f3759df-i]

You’re just making my point, it was a compromise for the time that no sane person would include in a country or constitution started from scratch today. There’s a reason no other country on earth uses such a ridiculous system. It is just tech debt we have to live with.

[comte7092]

The “need” for the EC is all post hoc rationalization at this point. It was an expedient political compromise made in an environment that is wholly different than the one we live in today.

The only reason we maintain it now is because it is both too hard to change and also perceived (correctly or incorrectly) to give an advantage to one of the two major parties in our political system, which effectively kills their support.

[supertrope]

>replace foreign government

Like a CIA sponsored military coup? Or aerial bombing?

[vundercind]

The “friendlier” nation-building stuff, from being invited to help (as in the original example) to installing new states in countries we’ve conquered (you see now why the quotes on “friendlier”).

Less so the coups. Usually with those we just want some degree of fealty or alignment. Dictators are easier to predict and control in that way, and one fuck of a lot cheaper to install than a functioning democracy.

[BizarroLand]

From what I gather in the Federalist Society Papers, the original intent was that we would reinvent our country every 25 years or so, draft a new constitution and incorporate all of the changes that we needed to continue to function with the precept of being a great society, "Of the people, by the people, for the people".

However, requiring 100% of states to affirm the new constitution was difficult enough in 1776 when there were only 13 states and they all had a common enemy to band together against.

Doing that now would probably be impossible or require antilogic so extreme no human could read it without their ears bleeding from the brain hemorrhage.

[dragonwriter]

> From what I gather in the Federalist Society Papers, the original intent was that we would reinvent our country every 25 years or so

I think you are confusing in name the Federalist Papers with the modern and, except in attempt to steal glory, unrelated Federalist Society, and confusing in substance the Federalist Papers with a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to John Adams in which he expressed the conclusion that all laws (incl. Cobstitutions) must, based on then-current actuarial data, sunset in approximately that timeframe to avoid the living being ruled over by the dead.

[BizarroLand]

You're probably right. I was quoting from memory and memory is unreliable. Thanks for the clarification!

[eszed]

Just to be pedantic: constitutional amendments, in the USA, require a maximum of 75% of the states to agree. Minimally 66.6% (repeating, of course) of them to call a constitutional convention, and ratify the results.

None of that challenges your important points about the intentions of the founders, nor the difficulties upon which their project has run around.

[Workaccount2]

I think the idea is in good spirit, but it's important to be aware that gov backed services often run at a loss indefinitely. It's impossible to compete with a business that doesn't need to make money to exist. So you end up with just the government service.

[Aspos]

I see why you have this assumption, yet we have 20+ years of data proving that a private bureau can actually compete, flourish and innovate while serving majority of the reports while gov-run bureau ensures that prices stay manageable.

[Zeetah]

In many areas, the notion of government services operating at a loss doesn't make sense - police, fire department, armed forces, libraries, parks, etc.

[Workaccount2]

None of those are links in a chain of private markets. They are their own government monopoly markets.

If the government is going to become the defacto credit rating agency, they might as well be the defacto lender. Obviously loan rejections and low scores will be unpopular and an easy lever to push on for more votes, so just ditch the credit ratings all together and have a government lender that lends taxpayer money for all loans at a flat-rate.

Which basically has happened already - student loans - and we all know what a rosey picture that is.

[mint2]

That is incorrect, those are not government monopolies, those spaces have private options.

FedEx, DHL, UPS and government USPS

Parks - there’s a ton of types with equivalent public and private versions

Police - private security

Firefighters - there are private fire fighters who protect houses threatened by wildfire - they just don’t need to respond when it comes to responding to stuff like traffic accidents and health incidents

Etc etc

[Workaccount2]

I mean, you can edge case away any argument. My neighbor uses solar and batteries so I guess the power company isn't a monopoly?

[mint2]

That’s not comparable, that analogy is like saying I have a backyard so there’s no government monopoly on parks. It’s not like saying there’s a private tennis club and public tennis courts, or whatever other typical park amenities.

That flawed analogy is like saying I have a baton so police aren’t a monopoly on protection, when my analogy actually was private security companies.

[CoolGuySteve]

Yeah that's why the only and best way to send packages here is the USPS.