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Safe Landing
Comments
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One thing that keeps government run items on the extremely expensive side is tracking manufacturing.
From the place of origin (which could be as simple as where the ore is excavated) to the last person touching the item where it is used/installed.
A bolt used by the military is a very expensive item when you can buy the same item at the hardware store for $1.
Creating a MIL-SPEC for a corkscrew may seem outrageous to some but to the government, well hell that is outrageous. -
I've always thought that slush gets directed toward black programs. I dunno, maybe that's just Tom Clancy shit.LebamDawg said:One thing that keeps government run items on the extremely expensive side is tracking manufacturing.
From the place of origin (which could be as simple as where the ore is excavated) to the last person touching the item where it is used/installed.
A bolt used by the military is a very expensive item when you can buy the same item at the hardware store for $1.
Creating a MIL-SPEC for a corkscrew may seem outrageous to some but to the government, well hell that is outrageous. -
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Post WWII we? thought our nuke monopoly would enable us to do defense on the cheap. Out chintelligence thought the Ruskies wouldn't get the bomb until the mid to late 50s at the earliest. Then Mao demonstrated the bomb doesn't stop proxy wars. Were it not for Stalin and Mao there might never have been a MI complex.GrundleStiltzkin said:
Yeah, guessed someone would put that out there. You're the history guym, so I'll defer. However, as I understand it, the nuke guys ascended between 1946 and 1950, whilst conventional ground forces were neglected. What ground divisions we had were largely tied down in European occupation duty.YellowSnow said:GrundleStiltzkin said:
Here's how I look at the military. The military is rightly imbued with the monopoly of force against foreign actors. As a monopoly and a government entity, it will be bloated, inefficient and wasteful. Weº should constantly endeavor to limit that as much as possible. At the same tim, replacing the military with a non-governmental solution is essentially impossible. Therein lies the tension.creepycoug said:
This. And, it would be more elite because the social program wing of the military wouldn't exist, freeing up capital for even more bad-ass automated weaponry, which you know full fucking well that Elon can make. I've never understood the Yuge intellectual exception in their collective views on government that conservatives make for the military. It's downright emotional. I mean, how can any self-respecting right winger and lover of liberty possibly uphold anything related to the draft?Swaye said:
I doubt Elon could make the military more effective at its core job, which is projecting power, influencing geopolitics, and killing Americas enemies, but I guarantee you he could do it more efficiently (cheaper). Even when the government is elite in performance, it is horribly inefficient. We, as taxpayers, should expect both. Jobs done to high level at the least expense. You never get that with the government. Usually you get shitty performance at shitty cost. Every once in awhile you get lucky and get one of the two, like our military. ROI is always terrible with the government.HHusky said:
Maybe Elon will build us a military.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
Trump is right: get the fuck OUT of every fucking little dog fight we're in, anywhere, and shrink that motherfucker down and, when that's done, don't re-allocate the budget and give me a fucking tax break.
Until the Korean War, the US military vacillated betwixt too small, just right, and too big. It's always fascinated me that 5 years after assembling the greatest military force the world had ever seen, weº struggled to scrape together a competent and equipped ground force to send to Korea. Since then, @TheChart has been pretty steady upwards.
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UW_Doog_Bot said:
A couple of other points that didn't fit into my other post.creepycoug said:
This. And, it would be more elite because the social program wing of the military wouldn't exist, freeing up capital for even more bad-ass automated weaponry, which you know full fucking well that Elon can make. I've never understood the Yuge intellectual exception in their collective views on government that conservatives make for the military. It's downright emotional. I mean, how can any self-respecting right winger and lover of liberty possibly uphold anything related to the draft?Swaye said:
I doubt Elon could make the military more effective at its core job, which is projecting power, influencing geopolitics, and killing Americas enemies, but I guarantee you he could do it more efficiently (cheaper). Even when the government is elite in performance, it is horribly inefficient. We, as taxpayers, should expect both. Jobs done to high level at the least expense. You never get that with the government. Usually you get shitty performance at shitty cost. Every once in awhile you get lucky and get one of the two, like our military. ROI is always terrible with the government.HHusky said:
Maybe Elon will build us a military.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
Trump is right: get the fuck OUT of every fucking little dog fight we're in, anywhere, and shrink that motherfucker down and, when that's done, don't re-allocate the budget and give me a fucking tax break.
Despite the many bad actors, by and large, those in the military serve for altruistic purposes which is why we end up with a bad ass military, even though, it is stupid expensive. I've yet to meet a service member who would disagree that the military industrial complex is a corrupt and wasteful institution.
We should be VERY watchful of when we do make exceptions and get government involved. As you said, gtfo of lots of bullshit wars, let people find out what it's like to have to fend for themselves. I love being lectured about American colonialism and hegemony while the world collectively hides behind our skirts from the CCP, Russia, or the myriad of other bad actor states.
And finally to your point, there is a conservative blind spot for military spending, but that's also because collective defense IS one of the only actual spelled out powers of the Fed and roles that only a handful of wing nuts would completely disagree with. It's an argument of scale and scope rather than the basic principle. I think many conservatives would be willing to cut defense spending in good faith but for the left it's never a matter of cut defense and give the money back to taxpayers, it's defund and redistribute to other government agencies.
Good post. I would take the defense cut and be on board with a reallocation if I had any faith that it wouldn't be squandered. But I don't.UW_Doog_Bot said:
A couple of other points that didn't fit into my other post.creepycoug said:
This. And, it would be more elite because the social program wing of the military wouldn't exist, freeing up capital for even more bad-ass automated weaponry, which you know full fucking well that Elon can make. I've never understood the Yuge intellectual exception in their collective views on government that conservatives make for the military. It's downright emotional. I mean, how can any self-respecting right winger and lover of liberty possibly uphold anything related to the draft?Swaye said:
I doubt Elon could make the military more effective at its core job, which is projecting power, influencing geopolitics, and killing Americas enemies, but I guarantee you he could do it more efficiently (cheaper). Even when the government is elite in performance, it is horribly inefficient. We, as taxpayers, should expect both. Jobs done to high level at the least expense. You never get that with the government. Usually you get shitty performance at shitty cost. Every once in awhile you get lucky and get one of the two, like our military. ROI is always terrible with the government.HHusky said:
Maybe Elon will build us a military.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
Trump is right: get the fuck OUT of every fucking little dog fight we're in, anywhere, and shrink that motherfucker down and, when that's done, don't re-allocate the budget and give me a fucking tax break.
Despite the many bad actors, by and large, those in the military serve for altruistic purposes which is why we end up with a bad ass military, even though, it is stupid expensive. I've yet to meet a service member who would disagree that the military industrial complex is a corrupt and wasteful institution.
We should be VERY watchful of when we do make exceptions and get government involved. As you said, gtfo of lots of bullshit wars, let people find out what it's like to have to fend for themselves. I love being lectured about American colonialism and hegemony while the world collectively hides behind our skirts from the CCP, Russia, or the myriad of other bad actor states.
And finally to your point, there is a conservative blind spot for military spending, but that's also because collective defense IS one of the only actual spelled out powers of the Fed and roles that only a handful of wing nuts would completely disagree with. It's an argument of scale and scope rather than the basic principle. I think many conservatives would be willing to cut defense spending in good faith but for the left it's never a matter of cut defense and give the money back to taxpayers, it's defund and redistribute to other government agencies.
But fuck, I'd be on board with using it to fund SS and Medicare, two of the only social programs I would defend because I think we'd be in such a bad way as a society if it were to disappear. But not welfare and related programs sans major reforms to those programs. And for @Swaye , I might throw a few trill to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Fuck, why not?
Totally and completely agree with your comment about being lectured by those who live under our skirt. I actually got into it with one of my kids the other night. She lost that one. Most kids are the age of 30 have no idea our role in the collective effort to keep the globe from being a complete shit show, as opposed to the mostly complete shit show it is. They also don't seem to understand what Russian & China are capable of doing if left unchecked. Fuch those guysms. -
I can see that. A private military would be akin to the popular Roman general who lives most of his life outside the gates of Rome with his army ... to whom does that army really pay fielty when the shit hits the fan? The general or the Emperor/Senate?UW_Doog_Bot said:
There's this concept of negative externality, a negative consequence born out by society at large rather than simply the economic actors themselves.creepycoug said:
This. And, it would be more elite because the social program wing of the military wouldn't exist, freeing up capital for even more bad-ass automated weaponry, which you know full fucking well that Elon can make. I've never understood the Yuge intellectual exception in their collective views on government that conservatives make for the military. It's downright emotional. I mean, how can any self-respecting right winger and lover of liberty possibly uphold anything related to the draft?Swaye said:
I doubt Elon could make the military more effective at its core job, which is projecting power, influencing geopolitics, and killing Americas enemies, but I guarantee you he could do it more efficiently (cheaper). Even when the government is elite in performance, it is horribly inefficient. We, as taxpayers, should expect both. Jobs done to high level at the least expense. You never get that with the government. Usually you get shitty performance at shitty cost. Every once in awhile you get lucky and get one of the two, like our military. ROI is always terrible with the government.HHusky said:
Maybe Elon will build us a military.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
Trump is right: get the fuck OUT of every fucking little dog fight we're in, anywhere, and shrink that motherfucker down and, when that's done, don't re-allocate the budget and give me a fucking tax break.
If there is a large enough negative externality this is precisely where you DO have a role for government to play. To either mitigate that negative externality to society at large or to impose the costs back on the original economic actors.
In the case of the military private security would present a rather large negative externality of whoever is paying for the security would have an out-size amount of power over society among many other obvious negatives.
Hence, we have a rather large net positive outcome despite all of the inefficiency, waste, and corruption of a government run military. This is literally, "This is a terrible system but we don't have any better option." -
* fealty.creepycoug said:
I can see that. A private military would be akin to the popular Roman general who lives most of his life outside the gates of Rome with his army ... to whom does that army really pay fielty when the shit hits the fan? The general or the Emperor/Senate?UW_Doog_Bot said:
There's this concept of negative externality, a negative consequence born out by society at large rather than simply the economic actors themselves.creepycoug said:
This. And, it would be more elite because the social program wing of the military wouldn't exist, freeing up capital for even more bad-ass automated weaponry, which you know full fucking well that Elon can make. I've never understood the Yuge intellectual exception in their collective views on government that conservatives make for the military. It's downright emotional. I mean, how can any self-respecting right winger and lover of liberty possibly uphold anything related to the draft?Swaye said:
I doubt Elon could make the military more effective at its core job, which is projecting power, influencing geopolitics, and killing Americas enemies, but I guarantee you he could do it more efficiently (cheaper). Even when the government is elite in performance, it is horribly inefficient. We, as taxpayers, should expect both. Jobs done to high level at the least expense. You never get that with the government. Usually you get shitty performance at shitty cost. Every once in awhile you get lucky and get one of the two, like our military. ROI is always terrible with the government.HHusky said:
Maybe Elon will build us a military.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
Trump is right: get the fuck OUT of every fucking little dog fight we're in, anywhere, and shrink that motherfucker down and, when that's done, don't re-allocate the budget and give me a fucking tax break.
If there is a large enough negative externality this is precisely where you DO have a role for government to play. To either mitigate that negative externality to society at large or to impose the costs back on the original economic actors.
In the case of the military private security would present a rather large negative externality of whoever is paying for the security would have an out-size amount of power over society among many other obvious negatives.
Hence, we have a rather large net positive outcome despite all of the inefficiency, waste, and corruption of a government run military. This is literally, "This is a terrible system but we don't have any better option."
But chinned for the good try, good effort. It's a great word. -
I thought you were playing polo!GrundleStiltzkin said:
* fealty.creepycoug said:
I can see that. A private military would be akin to the popular Roman general who lives most of his life outside the gates of Rome with his army ... to whom does that army really pay fielty when the shit hits the fan? The general or the Emperor/Senate?UW_Doog_Bot said:
There's this concept of negative externality, a negative consequence born out by society at large rather than simply the economic actors themselves.creepycoug said:
This. And, it would be more elite because the social program wing of the military wouldn't exist, freeing up capital for even more bad-ass automated weaponry, which you know full fucking well that Elon can make. I've never understood the Yuge intellectual exception in their collective views on government that conservatives make for the military. It's downright emotional. I mean, how can any self-respecting right winger and lover of liberty possibly uphold anything related to the draft?Swaye said:
I doubt Elon could make the military more effective at its core job, which is projecting power, influencing geopolitics, and killing Americas enemies, but I guarantee you he could do it more efficiently (cheaper). Even when the government is elite in performance, it is horribly inefficient. We, as taxpayers, should expect both. Jobs done to high level at the least expense. You never get that with the government. Usually you get shitty performance at shitty cost. Every once in awhile you get lucky and get one of the two, like our military. ROI is always terrible with the government.HHusky said:
Maybe Elon will build us a military.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
Trump is right: get the fuck OUT of every fucking little dog fight we're in, anywhere, and shrink that motherfucker down and, when that's done, don't re-allocate the budget and give me a fucking tax break.
If there is a large enough negative externality this is precisely where you DO have a role for government to play. To either mitigate that negative externality to society at large or to impose the costs back on the original economic actors.
In the case of the military private security would present a rather large negative externality of whoever is paying for the security would have an out-size amount of power over society among many other obvious negatives.
Hence, we have a rather large net positive outcome despite all of the inefficiency, waste, and corruption of a government run military. This is literally, "This is a terrible system but we don't have any better option."
But chinned for the good try, good effort. It's a great word.
You know I'm ESL damnit!! -
Reins in the right, phone in the left.creepycoug said:
I thought you were playing polo!GrundleStiltzkin said:
* fealty.creepycoug said:
I can see that. A private military would be akin to the popular Roman general who lives most of his life outside the gates of Rome with his army ... to whom does that army really pay fielty when the shit hits the fan? The general or the Emperor/Senate?UW_Doog_Bot said:
There's this concept of negative externality, a negative consequence born out by society at large rather than simply the economic actors themselves.creepycoug said:
This. And, it would be more elite because the social program wing of the military wouldn't exist, freeing up capital for even more bad-ass automated weaponry, which you know full fucking well that Elon can make. I've never understood the Yuge intellectual exception in their collective views on government that conservatives make for the military. It's downright emotional. I mean, how can any self-respecting right winger and lover of liberty possibly uphold anything related to the draft?Swaye said:
I doubt Elon could make the military more effective at its core job, which is projecting power, influencing geopolitics, and killing Americas enemies, but I guarantee you he could do it more efficiently (cheaper). Even when the government is elite in performance, it is horribly inefficient. We, as taxpayers, should expect both. Jobs done to high level at the least expense. You never get that with the government. Usually you get shitty performance at shitty cost. Every once in awhile you get lucky and get one of the two, like our military. ROI is always terrible with the government.HHusky said:
Maybe Elon will build us a military.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
Trump is right: get the fuck OUT of every fucking little dog fight we're in, anywhere, and shrink that motherfucker down and, when that's done, don't re-allocate the budget and give me a fucking tax break.
If there is a large enough negative externality this is precisely where you DO have a role for government to play. To either mitigate that negative externality to society at large or to impose the costs back on the original economic actors.
In the case of the military private security would present a rather large negative externality of whoever is paying for the security would have an out-size amount of power over society among many other obvious negatives.
Hence, we have a rather large net positive outcome despite all of the inefficiency, waste, and corruption of a government run military. This is literally, "This is a terrible system but we don't have any better option."
But chinned for the good try, good effort. It's a great word.
You know I'm ESL damnit!! -
It would take discipline and common sense. Take the money and give it to the homeless? Nope. Ban internal combustion engines and subsidize electric cars? Nope. Ban fracking and build solar? Nope. My infrastructure would be nukes, LNG export facilities and more roads and bridges. Balance the budget. We are closer to door number one than door number two.creepycoug said:
During tims of plenty, I'd like to see us use that tax money/capital to reinvest in American infrastructure/education/other domestic issues.GrundleStiltzkin said:
That's the external manifestation of the paradox of prosperity. When weº barely have a pot to piss in, we don't care and can't care about some internecine conflict 10,000 miles away. More wealth, more capability, we have more capacity and chinclination to fix problems of increasingly smaller proportion. It takes structural limitations and discerning leadership to avoid that.creepycoug said:
Trump is right: get the fuck OUT of every fucking little dog fight we're in, anywhere, and shrink that motherfucker down and, when that's done, don't re-allocate the budget and give me a fucking tax break.
Takes discipline. -
I'd be on board with that generally. I'd invest in continued alt-energy exploration. Look how far solar has come. Why not develop it as complimentary to other sources? Roads/bridges and fund education, including alternatives to full-public education like charter, which I support. Balance the budget. Shrink and reform the fuck out of the welfare state, fund SS because at the end of the day there is a larger % than any of us would like to admit who would be fucked without it, fund Medicare because we haven't quite figured out how to make that number work in most retiree budgets.WestlinnDuck said:
It would take discipline and common sense. Take the money and give it to the homeless? Nope. Ban internal combustion engines and subsidize electric cars? Nope. Ban fracking and build solar? Nope. My infrastructure would be nukes, LNG export facilities and more roads and bridges. Balance the budget. We are closer to door number one than door number two.creepycoug said:
During tims of plenty, I'd like to see us use that tax money/capital to reinvest in American infrastructure/education/other domestic issues.GrundleStiltzkin said:
That's the external manifestation of the paradox of prosperity. When weº barely have a pot to piss in, we don't care and can't care about some internecine conflict 10,000 miles away. More wealth, more capability, we have more capacity and chinclination to fix problems of increasingly smaller proportion. It takes structural limitations and discerning leadership to avoid that.creepycoug said:
Trump is right: get the fuck OUT of every fucking little dog fight we're in, anywhere, and shrink that motherfucker down and, when that's done, don't re-allocate the budget and give me a fucking tax break.
Takes discipline.
Basically take the military surplus and reinvest it wisely domestically, or give it the fuck back to tax payers. I'd take either one. -
I'm good with energy research. But solar has come a long way and as it approaches the theoretical physical limitation, those easy gains are history. The truth is that solar is dirty (lots of rare earths) and expensive and still inefficient. What does work now is nuclear fission. Research and develop a standard fission reactor, open up Yucca Mountain and have a reliable base load carbon free electrical source and don't build it in a earthquake zone next to the ocean. Unlike Japan, the US has lots or real estate that would qualify.
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And even if you do build it an tsunami zone don’t put the generator in the basement.WestlinnDuck said:I'm good with energy research. But solar has come a long way and as it approaches the theoretical physical limitation, those easy gains are history. The truth is that solar is dirty (lots of rare earths) and expensive and still inefficient. What does work now is nuclear fission. Research and develop a standard fission reactor, open up Yucca Mountain and have a reliable base load carbon free electrical source and don't build it in a earthquake zone next to the ocean. Unlike Japan, the US has lots or real estate that would qualify.
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Agreed. I think where solar and, to a lesser degree, wind, can work is if it can be developed to the point of affordability to the individual home owner such that there is in the aggregate a lot less pull on the grid from all of us. I have neighbors who ponied up the $$ a while back to get solar on their roofs, and while they will always have lower E bills than I they'll be dead before they can break even. Change that to something more economically affordable and you might have something.WestlinnDuck said:I'm good with energy research. But solar has come a long way and as it approaches the theoretical physical limitation, those easy gains are history. The truth is that solar is dirty (lots of rare earths) and expensive and still inefficient. What does work now is nuclear fission. Research and develop a standard fission reactor, open up Yucca Mountain and have a reliable base load carbon free electrical source and don't build it in a earthquake zone next to the ocean. Unlike Japan, the US has lots or real estate that would qualify.
The place we're building in Chelan will have the potential to push energy back to the grid. I did it for the entertainment value, but solar over there 7 or 8 months out of the year is productive, and wind is pretty much 12 months a year with uplake winds making their way down. The architect angled the house for maximized sun exposure throughout the day and built a pad for a future blade that I can raise up and down. Need to work through the cost for the equipment and any permitting ... I don't want to get into the ESA shit for killing some protected bird ... but it's chintresting because the wind blows there all the time. -
Verticle wind turbine would or should be easy to add for home use. I saw a program about how effect it is and bird safe. Main thing they are not as ugly as the propellors
Edit: of course does not work on calm days too well -
Lots of energy superiority guys here.
This is how I would do acollege football playoffUS energy policy. -
Disagree.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
They just require private partnership to keep things honest. It’s different when your money is on the table.
See: 1960/70s NASA and the Manhattan Project. -
Private enterprise could never have built the bomb in 3 yrs, nor put a man on the moon in the 60s.thechatch said:
Disagree.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
They just require private partnership to keep things honest. It’s different when your money is on the table.
See: 1960/70s NASA and the Manhattan Project. -
That was old NASA - new NASA is a wasteful government entity.
CSB - I worked at Redstone Arsenal in upper Alabama, a janitor for our building got a promotion and transferred to another building. A couple of us were over near his new bldg one day so stopped in to see him. He was in charge of cleaning a machine shop that was loaded with millions of dollars worth of equipment. He told us he hated it. The reason: the machine shop hasn't been used for over 10 years because NASA has to sub-contract out the work and they laid off all their machinists. He was frigging cleaning a bldg that was not is use!!!! He had no one to talk to, was bored as all get out. This is our government at work - and this is common place -
The intial capital investment may have been too yuge and, really, what would have been the ROI to send a guy to the moon? So you're probably right, but that's because I don't see the payoff for private enterprise to do it then (not sure I see it now). The bomb? Yes. Private enterprise can do anything the government can do, and better and faster. If there had been a yuge payday for Bombs R' Us to develop it, they would have and could have.YellowSnow said:
Private enterprise could never have built the bomb in 3 yrs, nor put a man on the moon in the 60s.thechatch said:
Disagree.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
They just require private partnership to keep things honest. It’s different when your money is on the table.
See: 1960/70s NASA and the Manhattan Project. -
What are we arguing about again? I DRIKIG Cuba Libre. Libertad. Libertad.creepycoug said:
The intial capital investment may have been too yuge and, really, what would have been the ROI to send a guy to the moon? So you're probably right, but that's because I don't see the payoff for private enterprise to do it then (not sure I see it now). The bomb? Yes. Private enterprise can do anything the government can do, and better and faster. If there had been a yuge payday for Bombs R' Us to develop it, they would have and could have.YellowSnow said:
Private enterprise could never have built the bomb in 3 yrs, nor put a man on the moon in the 60s.thechatch said:
Disagree.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
They just require private partnership to keep things honest. It’s different when your money is on the table.
See: 1960/70s NASA and the Manhattan Project. -
***crickets***BennyBeaver said:Does anyone know how much govt. subsidies SpaceX has received?
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Long-Term favors the Native Americans.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
My guess is the last episode of Yellowstone will have John Dutton selling the land back to the Natives.
But they should Rawhide Torture Kevin Costner for yet another fake, shitty accent that ruins the fucking show. -
Look who wrote it.GrundleStiltzkin said:
All the best bumperstickers are intellectually bankrupt.UW_Doog_Bot said:
A couple of other points that didn't fit into my other post.creepycoug said:
This. And, it would be more elite because the social program wing of the military wouldn't exist, freeing up capital for even more bad-ass automated weaponry, which you know full fucking well that Elon can make. I've never understood the Yuge intellectual exception in their collective views on government that conservatives make for the military. It's downright emotional. I mean, how can any self-respecting right winger and lover of liberty possibly uphold anything related to the draft?Swaye said:
I doubt Elon could make the military more effective at its core job, which is projecting power, influencing geopolitics, and killing Americas enemies, but I guarantee you he could do it more efficiently (cheaper). Even when the government is elite in performance, it is horribly inefficient. We, as taxpayers, should expect both. Jobs done to high level at the least expense. You never get that with the government. Usually you get shitty performance at shitty cost. Every once in awhile you get lucky and get one of the two, like our military. ROI is always terrible with the government.HHusky said:
Maybe Elon will build us a military.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
Trump is right: get the fuck OUT of every fucking little dog fight we're in, anywhere, and shrink that motherfucker down and, when that's done, don't re-allocate the budget and give me a fucking tax break.
Despite the many bad actors, by and large, those in the military serve for altruistic purposes which is why we end up with a bad ass military, even though, it is stupid expensive. I've yet to meet a service member who would disagree that the military industrial complex is a corrupt and wasteful institution.
We should be VERY watchful of when we do make exception and get government involved. As you said, gtfo of lots of bullshit wars, let people find out what it's like to have to fend for themselves. I love being lectured about American colonialism and hegemony while the world collectively hides behind our skirts from the CCP, Russia, or the myriad of other bad actor states.
And finally to your point, there is a conservative blind spot for military spending, but that's also because collective defense IS one of the only actual spelled out powers of the Fed and roles that only a handful of wing nut would completely disagree with. It's an argument of scale and scope rather than the basic principle. I think many conservatives would be willing to cut defense spending in good faith but for the left it's never a matter of cut defense and give the money back to taxpayers, it's defund and redistribute to other government agencies.
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creepycoug said:
I can see that. A private military would be akin to the popular Roman general who lives most of his life outside the gates of Rome with his army ... to whom does that army really pay fielty when the shit hits the fan? The general or the Emperor/Senate?UW_Doog_Bot said:
There's this concept of negative externality, a negative consequence born out by society at large rather than simply the economic actors themselves.creepycoug said:
This. And, it would be more elite because the social program wing of the military wouldn't exist, freeing up capital for even more bad-ass automated weaponry, which you know full fucking well that Elon can make. I've never understood the Yuge intellectual exception in their collective views on government that conservatives make for the military. It's downright emotional. I mean, how can any self-respecting right winger and lover of liberty possibly uphold anything related to the draft?Swaye said:
I doubt Elon could make the military more effective at its core job, which is projecting power, influencing geopolitics, and killing Americas enemies, but I guarantee you he could do it more efficiently (cheaper). Even when the government is elite in performance, it is horribly inefficient. We, as taxpayers, should expect both. Jobs done to high level at the least expense. You never get that with the government. Usually you get shitty performance at shitty cost. Every once in awhile you get lucky and get one of the two, like our military. ROI is always terrible with the government.HHusky said:
Maybe Elon will build us a military.Swaye said:The government sucks at everything it touches.
Trump is right: get the fuck OUT of every fucking little dog fight we're in, anywhere, and shrink that motherfucker down and, when that's done, don't re-allocate the budget and give me a fucking tax break.
If there is a large enough negative externality this is precisely where you DO have a role for government to play. To either mitigate that negative externality to society at large or to impose the costs back on the original economic actors.
In the case of the military private security would present a rather large negative externality of whoever is paying for the security would have an out-size amount of power over society among many other obvious negatives.
Hence, we have a rather large net positive outcome despite all of the inefficiency, waste, and corruption of a government run military. This is literally, "This is a terrible system but we don't have any better option."
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ROI or ROE on solar sucks and always will relative to historic ROE on oil at scale. At it's peak it's 10:1 or 20:1 depending on how you calculate it. No renewable will ever touch that.creepycoug said:
Agreed. I think where solar and, to a lesser degree, wind, can work is if it can be developed to the point of affordability to the individual home owner such that there is in the aggregate a lot less pull on the grid from all of us. I have neighbors who ponied up the $$ a while back to get solar on their roofs, and while they will always have lower E bills than I they'll be dead before they can break even. Change that to something more economically affordable and you might have something.WestlinnDuck said:I'm good with energy research. But solar has come a long way and as it approaches the theoretical physical limitation, those easy gains are history. The truth is that solar is dirty (lots of rare earths) and expensive and still inefficient. What does work now is nuclear fission. Research and develop a standard fission reactor, open up Yucca Mountain and have a reliable base load carbon free electrical source and don't build it in a earthquake zone next to the ocean. Unlike Japan, the US has lots or real estate that would qualify.
The place we're building in Chelan will have the potential to push energy back to the grid. I did it for the entertainment value, but solar over there 7 or 8 months out of the year is productive, and wind is pretty much 12 months a year with uplake winds making their way down. The architect angled the house for maximized sun exposure throughout the day and built a pad for a future blade that I can raise up and down. Need to work through the cost for the equipment and any permitting ... I don't want to get into the ESA shit for killing some protected bird ... but it's chintresting because the wind blows there all the time.
Passive architecture is interesting to me. Things like geothermal, sun exposure, etc. do have a lot of room for gains at scale since US housing in many ways is inefficient, out-dated, and one size fits all climates.
The one place where I actually do see solar and wind being a good investment is as disaster/emergency resilience. Doesn't matter as much if the grid goes down if you have those systems in place and they have lower maintenance/run demands than every house having a backup generator and enough fuel to run it for extended periods. Sure, you run into the limitations of those systems kilowatts potential but we are talking about a rationing situation anyways. You might not be able to use the microwave for hotpockets and the blender for margaritas but you can probably at least keep your fridge cool and power communications. -
If we have long term grid failure it doesn't do much to have the only light on in your neighborhood and food that hasn't spoiled. To make stand alone solar work you need very expensive batteries in conjunction with very expensive solar panels. Not many people are going to sign up for that, particularly in western Oregon and Washington.
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Well that's a two part misread. I'm talking less than 2 weeks-ish failure(like typical emergency supplies are supposed to last) and having it at scale so that everyone(or a lot of them anyways) in the neighborhood has some level of power.WestlinnDuck said:If we have long term grid failure it doesn't do much to have the only light on in your neighborhood and food that hasn't spoiled. To make stand alone solar work you need very expensive batteries in conjunction with very expensive solar panels. Not many people are going to sign up for that, particularly in western Oregon and Washington.
It's also not that expensive as a supplemental system rather than a standalone. Entry level is probably $500 for shitty cheap panels and a basic battery bank. The expensive piece is the converter which can run you another $500 or more. Still, for a homeowner you could easily spend $2k on a system that makes you prepared for fire/floods/earthquakes and mitigates some of it's cost by lowering your electric bill.
I'm not sure what your fridge/freezer looks like but I could easily save $500 of spoilage by having power for a single day that would otherwise be out.
I agree that geography plays a part, which is why I stated that originally.
We do these studies all the time at work for remote locations and for backup locations that require power. For some it makes sense to go solar standalone, for some it makes sense to run power or pay for a generator, and for some it makes sense to have a mix. That's the thing, it's a tool in the toolbox, not a tool to replace all others.
