Curt Doolittle

Theme: Subsidy

  • “Economic Crisis: Curt, What About Strategic Industries Like Boeing Going Under?

    Mar 23, 2020, 2:40 PM

    —“I hope you are well Curt. Can I ask, where does P stand on redistributing or Nationalizing corps like Boeing? Obviously it’s a question of Nation Security to have warplanes and such. I don’t like the propping up where the corps have no fear of loss though. Can’t we take it over, keep the jobs, keep it producing as-is, but extract all the old profits from the Losers? I’m sure you have an answer, so I’m not trying to start any shit here. I’m interested.”— Twitter

    EASY ANSWER

    1. Management and investors must pay for their folly not force the people to pay for their folly.

    2. If the management and investors fail to manage the company and it can survive by taking a loan, that’s the answer.

    3. If management and investors fail to manage the company so that it can survive shocks, and it must be bought back by the state (nationalized) and the investors wiped out, then resold once recovered, at a profit, then that’s the answer.

    4. If it is a strategic industry then the state should be an inactive majority investor, and sell off only a minority interest to investors. Why? Private companies make FAR better use of capital.

    Why state interest? If you look at how the russians and chinese produce military technology it is an industry better managed. American advantage is only in that we spend more on training and on practicing individual initiative and manoeuvre in combat, are more empirical in our training, and we are more loyal to each other than other peoples. I hav not studied the russian procurement process but I know it is far better than ours. They don’t appeal to congress. Our congress interferes all the time. We have many hands in the pie during every stage. we have too many people involved and not enough soldiers testing iterations of the equipment. The russians give one man responsibility for a program. That is probably enough a set of changes to fix most of it. My great-x uncle jimmy doolittle did a postwar evaluation of the pentagon for the president and was not terribly critical. I do not know what I would find if I did the same. The clinton military change and the obama undermining of the military did severe damage to the trustworthiness of the officer classes – but that is still repairable.

  • Loans Against Trust

    Oct 15, 2019, 6:05 PM by Luke Weinhagen Law and contract can be used to subsidize for the absence of specific trust, such as between strangers or untested business partners. Both are “loans” against the stored trust in a polity. Enforced and insured by the commons in the form of “WE as a common polity will impose a cost on any party that breaches law or contract”. Law and contract only provide incentives for adherence where you can expect positive reciprocity (trust producing – rule of law) or where you can rely on the enforcement mechanisms to compel adherence (trust consuming – rule by law). Trust consumption eventually gets us back to “Might makes Right” and brings us back to the question “Why don’t I kill you and take your stuff?” (we descend the foundational rule stack). If trust is not there in some form, no one follow the law or sticks to contracts.

  • Loans Against Trust

    Oct 15, 2019, 6:05 PM by Luke Weinhagen Law and contract can be used to subsidize for the absence of specific trust, such as between strangers or untested business partners. Both are “loans” against the stored trust in a polity. Enforced and insured by the commons in the form of “WE as a common polity will impose a cost on any party that breaches law or contract”. Law and contract only provide incentives for adherence where you can expect positive reciprocity (trust producing – rule of law) or where you can rely on the enforcement mechanisms to compel adherence (trust consuming – rule by law). Trust consumption eventually gets us back to “Might makes Right” and brings us back to the question “Why don’t I kill you and take your stuff?” (we descend the foundational rule stack). If trust is not there in some form, no one follow the law or sticks to contracts.

  • State Sponsored Hyperconsumption of Goods, Services, Info, and Virtue Signals

    State Sponsored Hyperconsumption of Goods, Services, Info, and Virtue Signals https://propertarianism.com/2020/05/27/state-sponsored-hyperconsumption-of-goods-services-info-and-virtue-signals/

    Source date (UTC): 2020-05-27 16:47:24 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1265686051307360263

  • State Sponsored Hyperconsumption of Goods, Services, Info, and Virtue Signals

    Oct 19, 2019, 10:55 AM

    —“What we like or want may not be good for us.” –Curt Doolittle

    Context of the original quote was that we have used a variety of techniques to generate hyper-consumption and especially conspicuous hyper consumption, and even worse, conspicuous hyper consumption of virtue signals. In other words, we may like hyper consumption but that does not mean it is good for us, any more than hyperconsumption of the pleasure response by drugs is, or hyperconsumption of sedation by alcohol, or hyperconsumption of calming by nicotine, or anything else in any similar spectrum. So, yes, “all things in moderation” for the individual but this isn’t enforceable if the entirety of the political economy is generating hyperconsumption for hyper-taxation, and hyper-redistribution. The state should not engage in the provision of the incentive to hyperconsume. This only benefits the financial sector. Instead, just redistribute liquidity in response to shock and sags directly to the consumer and cause business to fight over it.

  • State Sponsored Hyperconsumption of Goods, Services, Info, and Virtue Signals

    Oct 19, 2019, 10:55 AM

    —“What we like or want may not be good for us.” –Curt Doolittle

    Context of the original quote was that we have used a variety of techniques to generate hyper-consumption and especially conspicuous hyper consumption, and even worse, conspicuous hyper consumption of virtue signals. In other words, we may like hyper consumption but that does not mean it is good for us, any more than hyperconsumption of the pleasure response by drugs is, or hyperconsumption of sedation by alcohol, or hyperconsumption of calming by nicotine, or anything else in any similar spectrum. So, yes, “all things in moderation” for the individual but this isn’t enforceable if the entirety of the political economy is generating hyperconsumption for hyper-taxation, and hyper-redistribution. The state should not engage in the provision of the incentive to hyperconsume. This only benefits the financial sector. Instead, just redistribute liquidity in response to shock and sags directly to the consumer and cause business to fight over it.

  • Don’t Be Surprised

    Oct 19, 2019, 10:56 AM

    —“The government endlessly invests in grown adults who can’t dress themselves or bathe., and who destroy every apartment they’ve ever lived in. … As Marx says “from each according to his ability. To each accord to his need.” … Don’t be surprised when you have hoards of VERY needy people with that policy.”—Aaron Schwartz

  • Don’t Be Surprised

    Oct 19, 2019, 10:56 AM

    —“The government endlessly invests in grown adults who can’t dress themselves or bathe., and who destroy every apartment they’ve ever lived in. … As Marx says “from each according to his ability. To each accord to his need.” … Don’t be surprised when you have hoards of VERY needy people with that policy.”—Aaron Schwartz

  • The Universally Preferable Behavior Is the Opposite.

    Jan 13, 2020, 4:42 PM Sorry by “Parasitism”, “Rent Seeking”, and “Free Riding” are demonstrably the universally preferable behavior (UPB). It takes a majority middle class for demand for reciprocity. Man is amoral, not moral. Morality is just advantageous because we’re superpredators – and dangerous.

  • The Universally Preferable Behavior Is the Opposite.

    Jan 13, 2020, 4:42 PM Sorry by “Parasitism”, “Rent Seeking”, and “Free Riding” are demonstrably the universally preferable behavior (UPB). It takes a majority middle class for demand for reciprocity. Man is amoral, not moral. Morality is just advantageous because we’re superpredators – and dangerous.