Notices by Steve Randy Waldman (interfluidity@zirk.us), page 4

every centimillionaire is a policy failure.

without comment. https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/russia-elon-musk-list-names-dissidents-usaid-s798gktd7

under this definition, hasn't Congress — the most important branch of the Federal government — been under "competitive authoritarianism" for decades?

see e.g. https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/reelection-rates

from #StevenLevitsky #LucanAhmendWay https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump

ht @williamcb.bsky.social @casmudde.bsky.social

the part of the Federal government that is most dysfunctional and in need of radical change is Congress. it has been optimized for job security and internal stability at the expense of effective governance.

but the only take on electoral reform from this administration is Trump should have a 3rd term.

"When history is written, the first few months of Trump 2.0 will go down as the most craven and prostrate in the history of the Republican Party. We are living in a country ruled by fantastic conspiracy theories and personal revenge, and not a single Republican is willing to stand against it. Not one." #KevinDrum https://jabberwocking.com/this-is-the-republican-partys-most-spineless-hour/

@Phil @dcc @p the cheapest part of the innovation, which even every pharma person will concede is essential, is grant funded basic research. the government buys at least half of the innovation. the commercializers get rich reducing that state-financed research to practice.

@Phil @dcc @p i've saved money for retirement as well, relying upon the government to regulate brokers and fund sponsors to ensure the bankruptcy remoteness of my assets from dangerous financial institutions. if you invest in the stock market, you've benefited from extraordinary stabilization and acceleration of those assets by policy, from a Fed that drops rates to stimulate the economy to a Trump that drops tariffs at first hint of a fall.

@Phil @dcc @p as i've said before, i think you wouldn't like what you think you're asking for. you're investments might flee as fast as a memecoin dump without an SEC, or you'd have to guard your gold at home. and you'd have no social security to fall back on. if you think you are too clever for this, what about the millions of others also trying to save for retirement who might not be.

@Phil @p @j (you know what they say, if you want more of a thing, subsidize it, if you want less of a thing…)

@p @Phil Liechtenstein’s full population is 40K and it’s a tax haven. If you think Norway is a special case… I guess by most standards it’d be villages that in practice have the right to secede. I don’t think Liechtenstein can serve as a persuasive governance model for anywhere else.

Good point that the UK has its own nukes.

Whether Finns are grateful or not for the nuke umbrella, free-riding off it doesn’t explain their success.

Finns are not cattle.

@dcc @Phil @p spending money badly is not "socialist policy".

The US spends as much public money as most social democracies do on healthcare, and spends as much again privately. That's not the fault of "socialist policy". Universal health care works great many places. It's the fault of private sector incumbents blocking any sane arrangement of the health care system so they can continue to suck at the teat.

@dcc @Phil @p I think we have established that we see these things quite differently!

@dcc @Phil @p The New Deal is the main thing that ever made America great. Our letting it, and the spirit behind it, wither has been our national catastrophe.

@p @Phil Yes, but Finland, Denmark, Sweden do not have oil.

The US nuclear umbrella is globally important big government. Whatever free riding is in that hadn't translated to Nordic levels of well-being in Greece or the UK. The Nordics are obviously doing some things right.

@Phil You my friend are completely snowed and completely brainwashed.

Which countries provide the highest quality of life, including material prosperity, to the broadest group of people? The Nordics, by a long mile. Small government is not the key. Argentina has been a basket case for decades, and I don't know what the result of its current experiments will be, but whatever happens the mechanism will not be "small government universally good".

i think a pretty good, pretty accurate, way of explaining to less news-obsessed people what’s going on is Trump and Musk are turning the US into a “shithole country”, as the man himself once put it.

@Phil do you know how much, say, Federal government employment has grown as a share of the population?

@Phil the share of the workforce Federally employed has dramatically shrunk, because people making errors like yours have been around since the 1970s. that has increased the cost of the Federal government, as contractors charge much more and over time perform much worse (as they don’t preserve institutional knowledge). 1/

@Phil the fiscal footprint of the Federal government is down to health care, social security, and military. USAID, for example, is a rounding error. Trump has promised to preserve and protect SS and Medicare. Should we go after VA? Medicaid for the poor? Dramatically shrink the military? 2/

@Phil Federal workers outside the military is less than 2% of the workforce. Almost every new development in pharma and medicine begins with NIH/NSF funded research. Even very neoliberal economists like Benjamin Jones who study this stuff acknowledge that basic research funding is very high return, mistargeting is an issue but the unexhausted benefits of basic research overwhelm that drag, the main constraint is quantitative. 1/