103 Comments

That was fantastic, thank you. For some reason I burst into laughter when I saw that image of Zelensky.

Speaking of which, the inmates are running the asylum: https://bitchute.com/video/0IZHNH86FeY3

Expand full comment

It was a rare moment of inspiration :)

That Zelensky video is ridiculous. Why are the 'leaders' just a bunch of drama kids? Some super cringe videos here, too:

https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/when-the-drama-kids-play-as-bankers

Expand full comment

The only video I could watch for more than a few seconds was the octopus one. Yikes. If this is where the world is headed, count me out.

Had to watch this to ease me back into sanity: http://tritorch.com/balancez/Friends%20for%20Life.mp4

Expand full comment

But we don't want to know the running costs; if we did, we'd loose opportunities to cultivate mutually agreeable agreements with private industry leaders and businesses (read: opportunity for grift, backscratching, and socialised losses&costs/privatised profits).

And we'd be forced to work in a competitive work assignment structure; studies (that's been cherry-picked from the get-go) shows civil service works better without such, instead focusing on trimming and specialising core competencies vis-a-vis inclusivity and equityamong clients. (Don't need to translate that, you've been to the DMV, yes?)

Also, from the political angle, your suggestion would mean heightened demand for lowering of taxes, and such populist radicalism is a threat to democracy: since politicians are the guardians and paladins of democracy, anything which diminishes or shrinks their freedom and ability to act is an attack on democracy itself.

(They really do think that way, no sarcasm intended.)

We have the same perverse incentive-structure here, ever since the 1980s/1990s, when neoliberalism and its inbred family of moronic theories got implemented.

Expand full comment

LOL you nailed it so hard it makes me suspicious that you've worked in government! *suddenly suspicious*

Expand full comment

Well, pol sci was one of my subjects and in studying for that, organisatonal theory and practice was one of the subjects and topics. Even did a little essay on why Singapore was such an outstandingly well-functioning nation next to its cultural and geographical neighbours.

Today, I wouldn't even have been allowed to present the conclusion, that combining the chinese cultual traits of a well-ordered bureaucracy with the british traits of efficiency and "making the pie bigger for everyone" to use a short-hand phrase, was key - that without the european colonial influence Singapore would have been justas mired in corruption, ehtnic-religious conflict and so on; also, scarcity of resources breed creativity and breeds out wasteful traits. Cultures from areas with (historically) few problems due to natural resources, climate and soon are farless creative - those from areas with the right combination of features had to select for creativity and ingenuity paired with selective altruism and co-operation as ideals.

/sus

Expand full comment

I'm not saying you're stupid or something. I just disagree. ;)

Expand full comment

If we all just agree all the time, none of us can learn or get smarter. Disagreeing is the whetstone of the mind, yes?

Expand full comment

I get extremely suspicious if somebody agrees with me 100% of the time.

Expand full comment

I agree...😉

Expand full comment

You're WRONG!

ha ha just kiddin

Expand full comment

I have no problem with disagreement. ;) Obviously. That doesn't mean I don't LIKE you. But is it about liking each other, or is it about learning how to share our thoughts? I don't often engage in long detailed explanations of what I think unless I feel that doing so will be productive somehow. So often people simply shut the other person down by making some disparaging remark that is personal and not really even related to the topic at hand. Me, I generally enjoy a debate, unless it turns into trading insults.

Expand full comment

Yeah, I onboard with that. When I was a greenhorn in academia, polite disagreement in matters of any factual topic was the ideal.

Then along came gender studies and the rest of the PC-cults.

Expand full comment

“What’s a picture of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky doing here?”

<- We all know what that picture is doing right there...in that particular post. Just sayin’

Expand full comment

I mean...😂😘

Expand full comment

‘Remember Cash for Clunkers? In the name of taking old, polluting cars off the road, government basically paid up to $4,500 for these cars and destroyed them. That sounds great — if you ignore the fact that lots of people are looking for cheap cars to get back and forth to work and they’ve been priced out of the market by a government that’s DESTROYING assets.’ So we can all - well on this site anyway - imagine what will happen to the market when ICE cars are banned (2030 in Europe) and either used ones will have only scrap value, or Govt will buy up ICE cars so users can afford EVs. The transition will be hugely expensive to taxpayers and chaotic with many people without cars, vans, trucks, buses.

Expand full comment

That's the goal -- not EV travel for all, EV travel for the rich.

Expand full comment

Can I pile on with a local example?

In the 1990s when ethanol was the world-saving new fuel, the swedish governement at the time decided that anyone who bought a hybrid car would get a tax discount, to stimulate the purchase and use of such cars.

To combat the greenhouse-effect and save the ozonelayer, as the piel was then.

Only, the rule only said you had to buy a hybrid, not that you had to use ethanol fuel at all. So people bought what was technically an ethanol compatible car, got the tax discount (which was about $5 000 at the time, a significant amount) and had the engine tuned to run on petrol only.

In effect, you got a tax discount to buy a petrol car.

This was discivered almost immediately, and took over 20 years to change, simply since changing it meant admitting them having made a mistake.

And we are to trust these people with far more complex things, when their egos can't handle making a silly little mistake, and just say "Whoops, well that wasn't the intention, we'll fix that licketty-split!"

Then they did it again, with a "police buys illegal weapons"-scheme. Guess which nation they got the idea from? This at least was quickly stomped out, when the police reported to the media that organised crime was importing illegal weapons on the cheap (oldsoviet surplus among other things) and then making a profit selling the defunct useless weapons to the police. Perfect money-laundering scheme.

The reason for going to the media was the politicians had ordered information blackout of the fiasco, since it revealed that the dismantling of customs and border security (due to EU memebership) meant that you could transport weapons and explosives freely, with virtually no risk.

As for EVs, I think there's some 400 000 000 vehicles to be swapped out in the EU alone. Global manufacturing capacity of EV-batteries (and that's assuming all EVehicles use the same size/capacity even) is nowhere near that, and never will be.

Expand full comment

If only they could come up with a plan to reduce the population. thinking...thinking... never mind

Expand full comment

‘...to shift the natural balance of incentives — taxation and banning being the most obvious. (So-called “sin” taxes on items like cigarettes are very popular — taxes on gasoline not so much.)’ But whilst politicians et al accept that increasing the price of something means less will be bought, they glibly assert increasing the price of labour - minimum wages - will not result in less labour being bought, thus increasing unemployment and in fact reducing income for some who will have their hours/benefits cut as a result.

Expand full comment

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Expand full comment

Yep. Tax something and you get less of it -- so why do we tax labor?

Expand full comment

Ah! - A new favourite writer (or is this a new iteration of an existing one?). Not sure if this is a Freudian happy mistake or not, but I loved "scare resources"! Works either way.

Expand full comment

The editor's spelling sucks too! Although he's a cat, so he sort of gets a pass.

Expand full comment

Cats are ALWAYS exempt! By virtue of feline decree, and indifference. 😉

Expand full comment

Such a helpful, simple explanation of budgetary processes that normally put me to sleep. (I know, I know -- it's really important stuff!)

Thanks for the excellent article.

Expand full comment

Glad you liked it! You may want to check out this one since you did:

https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/inflation-and-you

Inflation and You

Boring monetary policy discussion made.......very slightly less boring

Expand full comment

I will! How perfect 😂

Expand full comment

I was in the construction business. There were stories of public housing buildings that were going to be demolished and contractors installing and getting sign off on new boilers so that they could get paid for a HVAC contract they had made years prior. Some of these buildings were demolished the day after the boiler was installed. This only happens in government.

Expand full comment

I could get rid of so many government positions that aren't needed. So top heavy and unnecessary!

Expand full comment

More fundamentally, the difference between government and private industry is that government seeks to prov diligence, while private industry seeks to achieve it. In government if you've followed the proper steps and protocols, you're safe. In private industry, you're safe if you accomplish the goal (effectiveness) using the fewest resources possible (efficiencvy0.

Expand full comment

Love the writing quote!

Expand full comment

Me too, that's why I stole it! 😈

Expand full comment

10% to "The Big Guy"

Now that's an incentive! 🤡

Expand full comment

And 10% to his brother, and of course 20% for Hunter -- bringing the Biden Share to 40%.

Expand full comment

As a former cog in the machinery of government, you are absolutely correct, and maybe even a bit kind to the managerial class of gov't procurement and spending.

I was lulled into gov't employ at an early age needing income and stability, then I stayed just long enough (~30yrs!) for the future promised stability of a pension.

The job, one of a public safety provider, was good; helping people when they were the victims of circumstance, or just did something plainly stupid (only seen through the 20/20 lenses of hindsight).

But I could not justify the blatant irresponsibility of the underlying organizational disfunction, both financially and morally. The latter third of my career was spent trying to change it from the inside, with some, but not enough, success.

I now try to repent for my (albeit minimalistic) going along to get along survival, by trying to educate and illuminate others to what is going on behind the curtain of "government".

If we are to ever prosper again, today's version of government must be reconfigured.

Expand full comment

Cats don't get to criticize punctuation. They poop in boxes.

Expand full comment

That's what I keep saying, but he doesn't care what I think.

Expand full comment

Remind him of the lack of opposable thumbs!

Expand full comment

Excellent article, looking forward to the next installment(s).

I like the “let’s get down to basics” approach, combined with the recognition that the realities of human nature should lead the way. Ideologues of every stripe seem to deal in some version of “everything would be perfect if only humans did not have human traits”. They then set about making rules for these imagined creatures that don’t actually exist.

I especially liked the kid’s allowance example. Clearly the people thinking up these policies have not successfully raised children.

Expand full comment

Thank you, though I'm still trying to figure out why my editor put a picture of Zelensky just after that "kid spends all his allowance but wants more" example.

------------

"Ideologues of every stripe seem to deal in some version of “everything would be perfect if only humans did not have human traits”. They then set about making rules for these imagined creatures that don’t actually exist."

------------

This is so true! We can't write rules for people as we wish they were, we must write rules for people as they are! That means ensuring the incentives aren't promoting governmental fuckery. And one of the most powerful incentives that "we the people" have to play is that giant bucket of tar and thousands of feathers.

Expand full comment

And it looks to be lost to the Twitter blackhole, but I distinctly remember writing about how LA County (maybe just CA) was actually changing the definitions and using modeling to determine bed availability. Wish I could link it :(

Edit: Well, the text may be gone but the media I saved for the article is still here! Check this out:

A couple images explaining the change:

https://imgur.com/a/4TmgbNV

https://imgur.com/a/QkamWub

I run some numbers to show what this fakery does to the stats:

https://imgur.com/a/hz7MJwp

The fake numbers show CA is out of ICU space

https://imgur.com/a/Rin9HGM

But the real numbers tell a different story

https://imgur.com/a/51QmfN9

In LA county as well

https://imgur.com/a/VdRmdG5

This has been our first episode of "Recreating an old article just based on screenshots used in the article."

Expand full comment

Looks very interesting on the ICU space but I don't fully understand how statisticians put spin on the data or massaged the data to make it look like ICU space was at zero.

Expand full comment

Basically, they used a 'formula' that artificially decreased capacity when the number of covid patients was high. They then used that artificially decreased capacity as if it were the actual capacity. It never made any sense at all, but California did it.

Expand full comment

who (or what entity) created this formula? Why not take a straight calculation of actual capacity? I think the bigger issue was the way covid deaths are counted which are deaths "involving" covid, which means that covid may not be the primary cause of death. This essentially blurred the line between dying from covid vs dying with covid.

Expand full comment

"Experts" in California created the formula -- and there was never any logical reason to use it instead of actual capacity. This was actually quite the scandal when it happened two years ago. Now it's all down the memory hole.

And yes, your "with/of covid" point is a great one. I'm kind of stunned we're still doing it.

https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/can-concerned-citizens-curtail-covids

Expand full comment

I remember that substack post well... Milk, milk, milk. It's like the cobra situation they once had in in India. When the government pays you to capture cobras to control the cobra problem you get cobra farms and MORE cobras. Until they stop roping in every death that happens within 28 days of a positive covid test, we're going to have a millions of covid deaths and a perpetual covid "problem."

Expand full comment

Best budgeting is zero budgeting. Whatever last year’s budget was whether there was an underspend or overspend, it will be reset to zero, so next year’s spending has to be justified. What is the return on the amount going to be spent - evidence please? And if that return does not match spending, no more cash until you’ve caught up. Oh and you’re fired because clearly you have no fiscal competence. That should reduce Govt by at least 80%. It’s OK to dream I suppose.

Expand full comment
Error