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Trying to shake off his buyer's remorse, Radley Balko speculates how this election could do some good for limited government.
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|11.10.06 @ 1:12PM|#
You reduce corruption by taking money and power off the table and putting it back in the private sector, where it's won through innovation and competition, not through golfing trips to Scotland and lunches at The Palm.
Is Radley honestly suggesting there are fewer deals made on the back nine and over 6 martini lunches in the corporate sector than in government?
|11.10.06 @ 1:20PM|#
In the picture of Bush and Pelosi, they are both smiling.
I got a bad feeling about this...
Ian
You are correct in that corporate deals are usually not done in the open. However, the corporate dealmakers can and are looking out for themselves and their corporations.
When politicians make deals, it usually involves taking more money from taxpayers. Corporations are at least constrained by the willingness of their customers to pay for their products.
|11.10.06 @ 1:31PM|#
I think libertarians tend to exaggerate the curative powers of the free market and the private sector (I said "exaggerate" not "invent"). Is there much less corruption when Company A is trying to get a government contract than when Company A is trying to win the contract from Company B?
Your Teacher|11.10.06 @ 1:38PM|#
Is there much less corruption when Company A is trying to get a government contract than when Company A is trying to win the contract from Company B?
Lamar, your question is constructed in such a way as to make answering it an exercise in futility. Please correct the logical fallacies and resubmit.
|11.10.06 @ 1:38PM|#
Is there much less corruption when Company A is trying to get a government contract than when Company A is trying to win the contract from Company B?
They're using their own money and get punished by the market if they make stupid decisions, so yeah.
|11.10.06 @ 1:41PM|#
Aresen,
However, the corporate dealmakers can and are looking out for themselves and their corporations.
Just once, I'd like someone to look out for me, y'know? Just a little. Just enough not to step on me. 'sall I ask.
|11.10.06 @ 1:47PM|#
Your Teacher:
You're fired for being an idiot. Is there less corruption when Company A deals with the government than when it deals with Company B?
|11.10.06 @ 1:54PM|#
I take back my answer, as I misread the question. The correct answer is "you're shitting me, right?"
|11.10.06 @ 1:55PM|#
Eric the .5b, I think you're first answer was closer to the mark.
Your Teacher|11.10.06 @ 1:56PM|#
Lamar, repeating your question in a slightly different form does not endear me to you. You get an F. Please leave the classroom.
R C Dean|11.10.06 @ 2:13PM|#
Is there much less corruption when Company A is trying to get a government contract than when Company A is trying to win the contract from Company B?
Yes.
You reduce corruption by taking money and power off the table and putting it back in the private sector
Well, that ain't gonna happen.
|11.10.06 @ 2:37PM|#
Your Teacher: You can't understand the question, yet Eric the .5b and RC Dean both were able to give definitive answers. Discuss.
|11.10.06 @ 3:01PM|#
Just once, I'd like someone to look out for me, y'know? Just a little. Just enough not to step on me. 'sall I ask.
Ian,
There is someone looking out for you...and his name is Ian.
And if government was smaller that job would be a hell of a lot easier.
|11.10.06 @ 3:02PM|#
Lamar-
Just to clarify, did you mean to phrase the question in that order?
|11.10.06 @ 3:21PM|#
Of the following transactions, which would exhibit more corruption, if any:
1) Company A gets a contract from the government.
2) Company A gets a contract from Company B.
Jeez, I already ate egg on the answer. What's the logical problem here? C'mon! Sure, Company A has an incentive to butter up the government and Company B, but the government contact doesn't have the need to make good decisions all the time or lose his job like the contact at Company B would have. Still, I think we exaggerate the healing powers of the free market and private sector. There's still a lot of golf and martini business getting done.
|11.10.06 @ 3:28PM|#
Of the following transactions, which would exhibit more corruption, if any:
1) Company A gets a contract from the government.
2) Company A gets a contract from Company B.
I think the main problem with this question is you are ignoring who gets hurt....
in scenario 1, the taxpayers get hurt...
in scenario 2, the shareholders get hurt...
and being a shareholder is voluntary and you can easily sell your shares.
R C Dean|11.10.06 @ 3:29PM|#
Is there much less corruption when Company A is trying to get a government contract than when Company A is trying to win the contract from Company B?
I mean, no. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The question is kind of a mess. I'm with Teacher on that point.
|11.10.06 @ 3:36PM|#
I think you all suck for being correct. I'm stoopid.
Your Teacher|11.10.06 @ 4:15PM|#
My beef, among others, was that corruption was implicit in the original question. I am changing your grade to a D- because you added the qualifier: "if any." But I'm watching you, Lamar.
|11.10.06 @ 4:29PM|#
There's still a lot of golf and martini business getting done.
Sure there is, but with corporations it is their (private) money and their success that is on the line. Sure maybe the shareholders get screwed now and then, but it's preferable to the taxpayers getting screwed all the time (besides, shareholders, unlike taxpayers, are voluntarily taking on that risk and can and should protect themselves through diversification). Also, if you're a corporation and you couldn't count on government protection, or largess to bail you out, then your competitors become a very strong influence to limit the amount of non-productive corrupt transactions you engage in. And finally I'd restate that absent the corporation's ability to use government power to their ends, there is no way it can get a dollar from you that you don't want to give it. So the real problem is always going to be the government's power to take from you against your will which no private entity has.
Your Teacher|11.10.06 @ 4:31PM|#
Brian goes to the head of the class.
|11.10.06 @ 4:39PM|#
There is one aspect of the private deals between corporations that hasn't been touched here.
Corporations often know who they wish to buy from - for reasons of quality or the specs matching what they need or the reliability of the party on the other end of the deal - so a private negotiation is often the quickest and most efficient way to get what they want at the best price.
In government contracts, it is very common for a) the government negotiator to have no idea what is really desired and/or b) the contractor seeking to sell the government something that is not needed at all.
thoreau|11.10.06 @ 4:39PM|#
Is there a moral difference between the gold and martini deal vs. a sleazy political deal? Sure.
But is there a striking similarity of methods? No denying it.
The private sector isn't exactly short of problems. It is, however, generally better at correcting them.
|11.10.06 @ 5:00PM|#
"""Of the following transactions, which would exhibit more corruption, if any:
1) Company A gets a contract from the government.
2) Company A gets a contract from Company B."""
Company B would never pay 1,000 for a wrench or 1,500 for a toilet seat. I can't say the same the government.
|11.10.06 @ 5:29PM|#
Company B would never pay 1,000 for a wrench or 1,500 for a toilet seat. I can't say the same the government.
Sure they would. I'm fully convinced that the business world has been infiltrated and taken over by the retarded (and apologies to the actual retards). In fact, the bigger the company, the frighteningly dumber they are.
The difference here is that Company B would be out of business PDQ, 'less it found a market for $1,000 hammers.
Can't say the same for the Feds. They just look at $1,000 hammers as encouragement. I swear procurement officers actually high five one another when they do this.
|11.10.06 @ 5:35PM|#
"The difference here is that Company B would be out of business PDQ, 'less it found a market for $1,000 hammers."
They could try California & Manhattan.
|11.10.06 @ 5:47PM|#
Company B would never pay 1,000 for a wrench or 1,500 for a toilet seat. I can't say the same the government.
that must be why new oil rigs suffer 65% inflation over the last five year period...oh wait that actually proves you completely wrong.
We spend a lot on the military because we do not want the cheap mass produced crap that anyone can get...we buy the best and most expensive because it is better then what everyone else has.
Oil companies do the same thing when buying oil rigs.
|11.10.06 @ 11:37PM|#
Joshua,
With very rare exceptions drilling companies don't buy rigs, drilling contractors do.
Dayrates oil companies pay to have drilling contractors drill wells for them may have gone up 65% in the past five years, but that is related to competition for rigs not increase in rig specifications. I am pretty sure the bulk of the rigs on the market were built prior to 2001.
Prices to build rigs may have gone up but that is likely caused by two things.
1. Demand. Shipyards are running at close to capacity because so many drilling contractors are having rigs built.
2. Steel prices. Building a rig takes lots of steel and there has been a substantial increase in steel prices over the past five years.
|11.11.06 @ 1:26AM|#
Company B would never pay 1,000 for a wrench or 1,500 for a toilet seat.
What Joshua said.
Have any of you ever been directly on the receiving end of a government request for quote? You should see what they want a freaking hammer to do.
"Said hammer shall, when ejected from a helicopter over a desert region, commence under its own power to fabricate and construct an entire latrine, less the toilet seat [to be aquired through a separate request for quote]...."
So let's see. As a contractor, the first thing I have to do is shove an entire tree in the handle. A power source and a saw mill, plus small robots to do the building, must all fit inside the head of the hammer. Only after that must the hammer actually perform the mundane function of being a hammer.
And we only charged $1000 for this hammer??!!
All kneel and bow. Praise be to the free market.
|11.11.06 @ 1:37AM|#
Lamar,
Is there less corruption when Company A deals with the government than when it deals with Company B?
As someone who's seen some Company A -- Company B deals being made, I can say the answer is generally yes.
Golf games and liquid lunches aren't corruption in and of themselves. They can and often are the lubricant that helps get a complex (read: high stress) deal negotiated. The fact that you're meeting outside company walls doesn't mean anybody is "being bought".
In some corporate cultures I've seen, all major deals get done over dinner and drinks, as a matter of course. Makes no difference who you're dealing with.
But comparing Company A to government, I'd bet Company A has put much more advance thought into who they want to be meeting with on the golf course.
Still, I think we exaggerate the healing powers of the free market and private sector. There's still a lot of golf and martini business getting done.
If this is a valid point, you haven't made it yet. If you could, I'd be interested in hearing it.
As size increases, so does stupidity and inefficiency. The sheer number of dumb things that get done in a large corporation, or a large government, is bigger as size grows.
This is partly because, as size goes up, the rules are more often made up more to prevent you from doing something wrong, than they are to insure you can do something right.
Nonetheless, government is not burdened with the same motivation that any corporation is, which is the need to make a profit somewhere along the line.
|11.11.06 @ 2:33AM|#
Election '06 may prove to be a boon for limited government
Gimme a break. Gimme two, they're small.
The only good thing I've seen come out of this election is that it's forced Rumsfeld out. There will be some lesser dominos falling because of it, which opens up the possibility that some things could get better.
Unless Cheney is strong enough, by himself, to keep the rotten apple cart going. TBD.
Other than that, I see no reason to believe anything else is going to get better. The Democrats have nothing to offer but different bad ideas.
I didn't vote in this election. Not because I fear that my vote doesn't count, but because there wasn't much that I thought was worth voting for (even the "against" options were just as bad). If we get McCain vs Hillary for the next presidential race, I'm giving the rest of the way up on politics.
|11.11.06 @ 9:47AM|#
What about the REAL elections that dealt with actual issues.
You know, like:
Most places passed bigoted marriage/co-habitation laws.
Medical marijuana was defeated.
Minimum wage increases with invasive record keeping requirements, and state amendments tying it to inflation passed.
Smoking was banned completely in some states, with the "small government" (hahahah) Bans ( we are for small government so we are ONLY going to ban smoking everywhere other than bars) losing out to the Total Bans,
Etc.
So really, considering actual policies and laws that continue to move in an "anti-freedom" big government direction, who gives a fuck if Statist party A lost to Statist Party B that supports the same bad policies with a different twist. And this is ALWAYS said when the GOP suffers a defeat but they always g back to business as usual.
|11.12.06 @ 2:43PM|#
Well, I see none of you are all that interested that the Dems are already calling for reinstating habeus corpus.
Libertarians--so much for your vaunted support of civil rights.
Feh.
|11.13.06 @ 10:17AM|#
Still, I think we exaggerate the healing powers of the free market and private sector."
I think this is a valid point. Deregulation in the California energy market is a practical example. Fundamentally, I have to ask: if the powers of the free market aren't exaggerated, then why is there no truly free market society?
|11.13.06 @ 10:41AM|#
Deregulation in the California energy market is a practical example.
From what I know about deregulation of the California energy market is that rather than being deregulated the market was simply regulated in a different (and even worse) way.
If the California energy market is what people think of when they think of free markets it is no wonder so many oppose them.
If you were fed pig slop while being told it was haute cuisine you would probably form a decidedly neagative opinion of haute cuisine too.
Fundamentally, I have to ask: if the powers of the free market aren't exaggerated, then why is there no truly free market society?
The fact of the matter is that in free markets there are outcomes that some find unsatisfactory.
Regulation is the attempt to produce satisfactory outcomes for a specific group of participants. Nobody seems to care that now a different group of participants suffers an unsatisfactory outcome (frequently even worse than the one that was to be "corrected") due to the regulation. At least someone is "doing something".
|11.13.06 @ 11:57AM|#
"The fact of the matter is that in free markets there are outcomes that some find unsatisfactory."
By "some" I assume you mean "the majority of the electorate." The California energy crisis was a direct result of deregulation. Major utilities were forced to sell their generation plants because, it was thought, no new companies could enter the market given the long-standing utility monopoly. This was supposed to create a vibrant, market-based system. Unfortunately, California is a net importer of energy, and the prices went through the roof. While you have a point that many regulation schemes suffer outcomes "frequently even worse than the one that was to be 'corrected'", the natural corollary to this is that "sometimes the shit works." All I'm saying is that free markets are not magic powder, especially when the market has developed under heavy regulation.
|11.13.06 @ 4:25PM|#
A "market [that] has developed under heavy regulation" is hardly a free market, is it?
Nor was the California energy market after "deregulation".
|11.13.06 @ 6:35PM|#
Ahhh, we'll go on and on about a fictional entity that could never exist in reality, the "free market." You'll always have wiggle room since truly free markets don't exist. I don't see why Reason doesn't change their tagline to "Free Minds and Non-Existing Theoretical Entities Upon Which We Place Practical Significance."