Modern Economics

[Bravus]

Ack, that ends up with a President acting with no checks and balances. Terrifying.

[Woody]

The President can't make law.

[bevin]

Actually, historically, they can and have - after all, they have control of the armed services.

They do it by

(a) ignoring Supreme Court requests

( not implementing the laws/budgets passed

© just doing things with the executive branch

Fortunately, they have not done it very often, and have not been allowed to stray too far from the wishes of the people

[D. Allan]

Congress saves us from would be dictators.

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

In short, the faith-based charities have proven that they are incapable or unwilling to fund the work or do the work.

Well, the Salvation Army did a better job with Hurricane Katrina than the government did. In fact, if the governor hadn't gotten in their way, they would have done a better job.

If we go back in history prior to the Great Depression we will discover that faith-based charities provided more help than the government did. In many developing countries that is also true.

Faith-based organizations, funded by government grants and subject to government audits, are much more likely to do a better job with welfare than the government does.

Quote:

pending it on religion-free welfare work. But they using don't do that either - they insist on bringing overt religion into it.

I have went to many food banks in churches, Catholic and Protestant. I never got a religious lecture once. I was never given religious literature or required to attend any religious services. These goods and services are provided without discrimination of race, sex, religion or creed. We wouldn't want such help to be "religion-free" because helping the poor is the essence of most of the world's religions.

[bevin]

Quote:

Well, the Salvation Army did a better job with Hurricane Katrina than the government did.

Don't expect me to defend "You've done a heckuva job" Brown, but I would like to see real numbers before I accepted this assertion.

Just because FEMA was not very efficient does not mean that other much smaller agencies actually delivered more stuff.

http://www.redshield.org/crisis/

$365M

178 emergency disaster services vehicles (canteens)

11 field kitchens which together have served more than

5.7 million hot meals,

8.3 million sandwiches, snacks and drinks.

Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN), comprised of amateur ham-radio operators, picked up where modern communications left off to help locate more than 25,000 survivors.

http://www.fema.gov/hazard/hurricane/2005katrina/anniversary_factsheet.shtm

$6 billion

etc - the numbers dwarf the Salvation Army's response

[Dr. Shane]

My point was that the Salvation Army got in with food and relief supplies before the government did.

Religious conviction and government accountability is likely to be much more efficient and do more good that government do-gooders on their own.

[Bravus]

But see this is what happens every time. I know that you know that abuse of welfare is the whole story, but those opposed the welfare act as though it is the whole story, and that's what I was reacting to.

[bevin]

typo: abuse of welfare is NOT the whole story

[Bravus]

Yep, thanks man, completely missed that.

[phkrause]

You're very correct about that. My sister-in-law works for the Louisiana conference and they got in there before alot of the government agency's. Also adra did quite a bit also. And I believe there where a few oninterviews they did on 3abn that showed quite a number of different adventist organizations that got in to NO and places in alabama way before the government did anything.

pkrause

[Bravus]

But see, it's the same thing. Arguing 'there is welfare abuse, therefore welfare doesn't work' doesn't make sense - it should be 'there is welfare abuse, therefore we need to improve systems and accountability and look at the whole incentives and penalties picture'.

In the same way, saying 'government is incompetent' doesn't logically imply 'get rid of government', it implies 'improve government'. (Yes, there is a legitimate debate about the level of government, but I'd think major disaster relief would be one of those areas where government has a significant role).

It's ironic that those who are pointing at the inadequate performance of the cronyised government are also Bush's biggest supporters.

[bevin]

Summary:

There is a role for non-government welfare, there is nothing stopping such activities, but a demonstrable inadequacy of these services to meet the need.

There is a genuine need for government welfare.

There is fraud perpetrated against both non-government and government welfare. So far that has not been pointed out.

In fact the non-government agencies also find themselves (a) providing help to those who arguably could help themselves, and ( having similar incompetencies to the government agencies - and often much worse. There are many private "charities" which actually deliver well under 50% of the money they are given to the stated recipients. ADRA, happily, is not one of them.

I wonder if this thread will get back to economics...

/Bevin

[there buster]

Quote:

It's ironic that those who are pointing at the inadequate performance of the cronyised government are also Bush's biggest supporters.

No need to introduce inflammatory rhetoric.

[Bravus]

Statements of fact, as far as I can tell. Was the performance of the government inadequate in response to Katrina? Was Brown a poorly qualified friend of the incumbent (crony)? Are those pointing to the inadequacies of government also those who support Bush? The only arguably inflammatory word in the whole statement is 'cronyised', and that's just a shorter way of saying 'hamstrong in its operation by the appointment of unqualified but loyal personnel'.

[Bravus]

Nope, it was completely apposite. The argument was made 'poor government response to Katrina shows that private disaster relief is better than public'. I indicated one significant reason for that poor government response, and one that is not a fundamental characteristic of government in general, but is of this particular government. My point was very directly relevant to the piece of economics currently under discussion - the roles of public and private institutions in society.

On another matter: you have mentioned the concept "governments should only do what only governments can do" several times. Would you be willing to clarify what things are on that lsit?

[there buster]

They tell a story about a cowboy in the Old West.

He walked into the saloon and found a stranger playing roulette. He warned the stranger, "Even on a fair wheel, the odds favor the house. But that wheel's crooked."

"I know," the stranger replied, "but it's the only game in town."

Quote:

On another matter: you have mentioned the concept "governments should only do what only governments can do" several times. Would you be willing to clarify what things are on that lsit?

If I were a stranger, I might. As Mark Twain said of some European souvenir sellers, "I was a stranger, and they took me in."

[Bravus]

Hmm, OK, but it makes discussion kinda difficult when you allude to your position on the key question under discussion but won't outline it.

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

it should be 'there is welfare abuse, therefore we need to improve systems and accountability and look at the whole incentives and penalties picture'.

Government being accountable to government is a flawed concept. However, let government fund private charities, religious or otherwise, and make the charities accountable to the government, and then we have a game plan.

[there buster]

Quote:

Hmm, OK, but it makes discussion kinda difficult when you allude to your position on the key question under discussion but won't outline it.

No sale.

[Dr. Shane]

I do not concede that Brown or Bush did a bad job in responding to Hurricane Katrina because the federal government's job in disaster relief has always been supportive. Nor do I concede that Brown was inexperienced. The facts are just undeniable that he wasn't.

Was Brown a crony that got a job he was not qualified for? Perhaps, I will grant that. Such things are commonly done in politics by both parties. Hard to criticize Bush for doing that if he in fact did. However before Huricane Katrina, Brown dealt with three... Let's count them. ONE, TWO, THREE. Three hurricanes in Florida the previous year. He knew the drill. By the time Katrina came he was experienced - even if he was a crony. However he wasn't experienced in working with corrupt and incompetent government like that in New Orleans!

The government failure I was reminding everyone of is the local government that shut down the city buses at 6:00 pm the day before the hurricane hit. It was the local government that told everyone they were on their own. It was the local government that turned down an offer from Amtrak to help evacuate the city. There is no doubt about it that local and national charities did a better job than the state and local government.

I will concede that the federal government didn't do a good job either but they are not suppose to be frontline first responders. They did in New Orleans what they have done in Florida year after year as hurricanes in Florida are much more routine. Bush is a big-government guy and he was glad to send millions to rebuild New Orleans and expand the role of FEMA to try and make-up for corrupt and incompetent local governments.

[bevin]

Does anyone know of a good book objectively studying what went wrong in Katrina?

/Bevin

[there buster]

An objective observer would conclude that Katrina represented a failure of government at all levels, which was where the argument was until that post.

A person with practical experience in emergency planning would recognize that without effective execution of plans at the state and local level during and immediately after the emergency, whatever aid came from outside--whether from the federal level or abroad-- would be delayed and wasted.

So how does a discussion of governments proper role end up being about personalities?

Quote:

It's ironic that those who are pointing at the inadequate performance of the cronyised government are also Bush's biggest supporters.

In one sentence, the discussion goes from what government can and properly should do, to a cloaked ad hominem attack on the people making that argument. "How dare they make such an argument," is the implication, "they support Bush." Of course, this is not an actual attack, oh, no. It's an observation about irony. Tres sophistique.

A knowledgeable political observer would assume that any mention of 'cronyism' the context of Louisiana, would be a reference to the notorious cronyism and corruption of Democrat politics in the state, which has been documented there for generations.

But no. In this fair-minded, even-handed debate, which was about the proper role and function of government, all we have is a shot at Bush supporters.

Now, did this arise because someone on the other side from Bravus take a cheap shot-- or any shot-- at Gov. Blanco, whose incompetence in the Katrina affair has the incumbent governor so far behind in the polls she's not even seeking a second term. No.

Was anyone talking about the particular skills or lack of any individual politician? No.

We were talking about government.

So if you want to know why I won't talk about the theory of what government should or should not do, it should no longer be a mystery.

I offered the opportunity to retract, but instead got more of the same. Then I'm supposed to go back to a civil discussion of the theory of government, and just wait for the next opportunistic zinger, which will then be explained as entirely appropriate.

And the next time people get into a hand-wringing fit about lack of civility, we'll be able to see exactly where this thread took a turn from the realm of ideas into the realm of personalities.

[Woody]

The problem with Katrina was the local government. The assistance of the Federal government was refused. When it was actually forced on them by Bush ... the locals still refused to help it's people. Even after a year ... the mobile homes from the federal government were just sitting in a yard unused because the local government did not want them.

Katrina just pointed out that the Federal government needs total control over the locals in this situation. And I hate Federal control. I am a States Rights person. But in an emergency the Feds need to take control.

[Dr. Shane]

The federal government just needs to give Haliburton a no-bid contract for emergency relief and consider it done. They can audit them after the fact.