Can A Liberal Help Me Understand This True Story?

Maybe you should ask the liberal who founded and runs Amazon ...

... or I guess that wouldn’t conform to your bull **** rhetoric.

 

no. the left/right dichotomy is defined pretty much solely by progressive attitudes vs reactionary attitudes, considering it was coined in reference to the french revolution and there was never an effort to give it consistent definition. you'll find that hardcore "stalin did nothing wrong" tankies and black bloc anarchists are both universally considered to be on the left, and this alone shoots some considerable holes into what you've said.

 

Well it has been said that this current Administration is neither Progressive nor Conservative. He is a Pragmatist and that iis what is needed after this long swing to the left. The attempt to capture a third of the economy (healthcare) into govermental control has proved a failure. It will take some doing to restore it once again to make insurance compete and give Americans a choice as well as respnosibility. The holes you spoke of were merely a facade.

 

That long ROI is almost entirely the fault of of government environmental rules and regulations and interminable challenges thrown up in the courts. It can take years just to get the proper permitting and years more to fight the legal challenges after words. Very few even bother to try to start a nuclear power plant today simply because of the tremendous upfront costs accrued before the first shovel ever hits the ground.

 

A function of the time of day and the day of the week among other things. And your talking about going in and he's talking about a phone call always different propositions. And frankly poor service is how the government proves it needs more money it's a game the private sector can't afford but has driven increases in the size of government since governments first hired Bureaucrats.

 

NO they won't that isn't how the incentives work in government. Incentives in government are always perverse. Why do you think the last month of the fiscal years sees most of the spending? Because any money you don't spend that fiscal year. will be cut from the next years budget. If there are complaints about the slowness of the service in government you can always chalk it up to being understaffed, try that in the business world and you're likely to be looking for another job.

 

The ACA was classic neoliberal bullshit. They wanted to straddle the line between privatization and socialization and they got the absolute worst of both. I mean, the Individual Mandate was promoted by the Heritage Foundation for chrissake. The idea of a "long swing to the left" is only accepted uncritically because the American public is so used to a dogmatic opposition to the concept of public money being spent on literally anything that ideas that fall squarely to the right of the entire rest of the developed world are still left of America's overton window.

I'm a communist, so obviously I'm not going to be satisfied with healthcare under any capitalist system, but I think you'll find that when you look at the rest of the capitalist world, single payer works.

That said: This current administration is a mishmash of deranged fascists (Stephen Miller, Gorka used to be a shining example before he quit, etc) yelling at Trump to go to war with ****ing everyone and neolibs who just want him to privatize everything imagineable. The only appearance of pragmatism comes in because Trump has worms in his brain where actual ideological beliefs usually go so he just advocates whatever he was told is good last.

 

First off there is nothing "true" about an anecdote.

Secondly Amazon is a LIBERAL corporation.

The situation at your DMV is a REFLECTION of the STATE itself rather than anything else.

In my state the DMV allows for most of the common procedures to be done online. For those rare occasions, like when I have had to go in for a new photo for my DL, it was no more than a ten minute process.

That is probably because I live in a LIBERAL state where my taxes are used to fund the DMV and upgrade it to make use of modern technology and reduce wait times.

In Red states where they don't know how to run efficient government agencies and are constantly cutting taxes to give to the wealthy elite it would not surprise me in the least if their DMV's are antiquated because of underfunding.

You pay for what you want and if you want an efficient DMV you need to pay higher taxes and that is the answer to your OP question.

 

The serious Left began as a radical challenge to bureaucracy. What happened?

"Visit times at the Department of Motor Vehicles are topping five hours, and unwary motorists find themselves spending entire mornings or afternoons trapped in crowded field offices.

Liz Guillen, a legislative advocate, was among them last week. The earliest appointment she could get to replace a lost license was next month, so she dropped by the Broadway office Thursday instead at 8:30 a.m. — and didn't get out until 1:43 p.m."
SACRAMENTO BEE, DMV visit times can top five hours. Here are ways to avoid the worst hassles, BY TONY BIZJAK, June 18, 2018.
http://amp.sacbee.com/news/local/transportation/back-seat-driver/article213205334.html

 

There is no shortage of examples. Government is an evil necessity - it sucks.

"But surely anyone showing up at 8 a.m. for a government office that opens at 8:30 would be early enough to be practically first in line, right?

Oh, my, no. On the last Friday in May, 30 minutes early didn’t even merit a spot on the same side of the building as the office, where a line of at least 80 people began. This was the kind of crowd you’d expect to see camping out for tickets to a hot concert, if crowds camped out for their favorite bands did so in a spirit of glum fury."

NEWSDAY, DMV hours drive us to distraction, By Lane Filler, Updated June 13, 2018 6:02 AM.
https://www.newsday.com/amp/opinion/columnists/lane-filler/fix-the-dmv-1.19161027

 

so you feel a govt monopoly can be efficient if funded properly? Do you feel a properly funded govt monopoly auto company could be efficient too?

 

When I went to the DMV in a very blue state people brought beach chairs to sit outside in the sun while they were waiting their turn in line. I wonder why you never see that at free enterprise Republican capitalist store?

 

Single payer works??? Does that mean we should use it in the automobile industry too?

 

Different goals. Locally, the DMV is pretty good. Why? Automation. They have a new SMS/Computer queue system. If I needed to go to the DMV today, I would enter the queue system now. It would text me my progress in line (how many are ahead of me and approximate wait time). Usually, I have to delay the system, as driving to the DMV takes longer than the text queue does. Can also get an appointment for weeks from now, and on the day of the appointment, they will text me. I have no idea why you would ever need to call the DMV though?

(I say all of the above as a conservative. I wouldn't want to pay for a DMV that was as responsive as Amazon. It would be a waste of money.)

 

Evidence for the above claim. I don't buy it, and I'm generally a small government anti-regulation conservative.

I know the permitting process costs a lot of time, but I don't think it costs more money than the actual labor/concrete/steel construction costs.

 

????We know from the Soviet experience that competition at Dmv would get us 10 times better service for 1/10 the price-right??

 

I would say both. When properly funded and manned, DMV offices are very time efficient. When they have 3 people trying to get through 5000 customers, that's when it takes forever. States with proper DMV funding tend to have many more offices, with a full staff, so you have more choice on which office to go to.

And I wouldn't mind private ontractors working as DMV offices, provided they were restricted on how much they could charge. The best private solution would be the government paying them a set, agree-upon amount every year and they taking any losses from their taxes. With the customers themselves paying no more than they would in fees at a public office.

More offices would mean less time per customer, which would mean less overtime and less money spent overall.

 

It is a broken system for sure. If society at large has become complacent - this is triply true for regulatory institutions. Not complacent in making new regulations - there is no end to that. It is complacency in review of these regulations to see if they are causing problems and respond to criticism based on these problems and assess if these regulations make any sense. Once a regulation is in place it is almost impossible to get removed or get exemptions.

Working in the oil industry I have experienced a great amount of stupidity. Sometimes crude oil contains H2S which is a poisonous gas that can kill you. If the concentration is higher than 10 ppm a worker must have protection. Everyone working around H2S must take a H2S safety course. In this course they teach that the goal is "ZERO" exposure.

So I asked the course leader about this "Zero exposure" goal. The nose detects H2S at parts per billion levels. Leave your dishes in the sink for too long and you will smell H2S. If you are not feeling well and pass gas ...it is H2S you are smelling. I do not recall anyone ever being hospitalized because someone passed gas or returned from vacation to find they left some dirty dishes in the sink.

The course leader said something to the effect of .. oh - but that is parts per trillion. Regardless of the fact that he was guessing .. the ppm of H2S in the aforementioned is higher than that ... the fact of the matter is that this is above the Zero exposure "GOAL"

Should we have garbage workers wearing gas masks ? Imagine the cost of this. This is a completely unrealistic goal. If one drives through an area where there is sour oil wells one can sometimes catch a whiff of H2S. Should we have all drivers through through this area wearing gas masks ?

One might think these are silly examples but, if you are working in the oil patch you will have equally silly situations where the regulator will require all kinds of unreasonable safety precautions. If you object - they will cite the "zero exposure" goal.

Now there is no "zero goal" in regulatory policy ... this goal is from the safety people who teach the courses ... something someone thought was a good idea. This does not stop regulators from quoting this standard - and good luck arguing.

When it comes to large corporations safety is serious business - A contractor doing the work will never openly question safety policy... that is a license to never get work again. Then you get lawyers and insurance companies get involved Lawyers are risk averse as are insurance companies. Both however are very far removed from the actual issue and so will make uninformed decisions.

All of a sudden it is almost impossible for a small contractor to get work. The liability insurance one has to carry can be so high that it creates a barrier to entry.

Then those workers or contractors who are doing the work will waste countless hours, on a daily basis because of exposure issues akin to someone passing gas or filling their car up at a gas station.

All from some committee that gives certification to safety trainers figuring it is a good idea to have a "Zero exposure" goal.

 

Leftists were not always apologists for bureaucracy and bureaucrats.

“The bureaucracy and the standing army are a ‘parasite’ on the body of bourgeois society, a parasite spawned by the internal contradictions tearing that society apart, but a parasite which ‘chokes’ all it’s vital pores.” V. I. Lenin, State and Revolution, Penguin. p. 27.

 

That is absurdity at its finest. The free market isn’t in the business of killing its customers.

Where do you come up with such BS?

 

What do you mean by prohibitive?

 

Tell Alexa that you want to renew your driver's license...

See what happens.

I just wanted to give this silly rant it just due!

 

Sure it is.
What would you call the inability to get insurance if you had a preexisting condition.
If it doesn't make money business doesn't do it.

 

I am quite proud of you for admitting you are a Communist....now I wish the rest of the Democrat Party would admit it then we could really go about business.

 

so did you think Republican capitalist competition would improve their performance?