TomAiello

Implicitly used the one used by Corruption Index. See methods section there. The definition they give is "misuse of entrusted power for private gain." Do you happen to know how they measure that, specifically in Somalia? I fail to see how "entrusted power" can exist to be abused in a place with no real government. There's no "entrusting" going on there--just "seizing." The implicit contention (from TI, not you) then appears to be "seized power is equivalent to entrusted power," and, further "privately held power is equivalent to entrusted government power." Once you make those leaps, it's easy to characterize any exercise of power (even disposal or use of private property) as "corruption"--you simply have to decide that this or that private actor is large or scary or bad enough to be called a government. In societies lacking the public "entrusting" I think it's useless to discuss "corruption." The "government" there either isn't really a government (anarchy--perhaps Somalia, though I'm not familiar enough with conditions there to say for certain) in which case there is no real corruption, or it is a non "entrusted" entity (China, Singapore, Zimbabwe) in which case corruption could be viewed as absolute. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Hey, at least they'd all move to Las Vegas. Then we could find a sort of biblical end to the issue by just nuking the place. In all seriousness, I think that the example of prohibition pokes some holes in your gut feeling on this issue. When prohibition ended we really did see a reduction in violent crime related to smuggling. Legalization reduced the margins to the point that it became a more "normal" business--one people weren't willing to kill and die for. Basically, what The Economist is saying (and I tend to agree with them on this issue) is that legalization will greatly reduce the funding available to organized crime, and that will reduce the size and scope of the criminal networks, and create a "better" (from our point of view) mismatch of power between the criminals and law enforcement. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

You've chosen an interesting measure that seems to support your contention. Why didn't you choose something like "dollar value of corruption total" or even "dollar value of corruption per capita." I don't think that a $20 nod on a parking ticket is as "bad" (noting that it's all pretty bad) as a $20 million construction contract. In which case, you're actually seeing something approximating a list of the states with the least corruption. In other words, the statistics there might suggest exactly the opposite of your implied conclusion. Sure. The statistics you presented could be read that way. What was it Mark Twain said about statistics? Can you clarify your definition of corruption? In my mind, if it's not government action, it's not corruption. It might be a lot of other things, but without the visible hand backing it up, it's not corruption. If they are independent variables, then _still_ the best way to reduce the dollar value of corruption is to reduce the total dollar value of government action. In fact, you could argue that if you cannot locate a correlating cause, then the _only_ way to reduce corruption with certainty is to reduce the size of government. Without having a handle on causation, you can't really address the issue any other way. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

What if we based it on other commodities? I could make an argument that a barrel of oil is a unit of "currency" in international exchange. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

If you think National Park's are unspoiled, I have to ask--have you visited any recently? Further, since it's OUR park, WE ought to be able to exercise our rights there. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

No, that's the concept of modern (fiat) currency. Traditionally, "money" usually had intrinsic value. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

When it's done with private money, I don't have to pay for it. When it's done with government money, I am forced to pay the bill. That's a HUGE difference. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

We can't. I'm not in favor of the massive spending going on in Washington these days. The fact that they're running up another (even bigger) tab for our kids doesn't mean that we should all just run out and spend as much money as we (don't) have. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Sounds to me like the government ought to sell it off. That would net them some cash to fund a tiny portion of the "stimulus." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

No, that's not how it ought to be. But realistically, that is the way things are, have been, and always will be. The only way to stop that shit, outside a pipe dream, is to take that power out of the hands of government. Limiting governments reach is really the _only_ option for stopping corruption, influence peddling, or whatever you want to call it. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

The Special Olympics is an organization created to help those with intellectual disabilities develop self-confidence, social skills and a sense of personal accomplishment. The emphasis is on helping people with intellectual disabilities grow, learn and feel good about themselves. The Paralympics is a sporting event held every four years for competitors with physical disabilities. It's a real athletic competition, and competitors are actually very serious athletes, most of whom are easily more fit, better trained and more dedicated than most of the people who read this forum. In the words of one competitor (you can hear them in the trailer linked above) "we're not going for a hug." If you have time, watch the Murderball trailer linked above (or better yet, the whole movie). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Not true. The NPS does not have to file environmental impact reports for some activities, in some cases. The primary case is when the NPS can claim to be following the lead of another agency (for example, if you want to make a BASE jump in NPS land, if you have a county government making the request for you, then you don't need the environmental impact report). In this case, if the NPS wanted to allow concealed carry, they could easily claim to be following the lead of the state that issued the permit (or allows carry) or whatever jurisdiction surrounds the park in question. There's always a way for the government to bend the rules for itself. You just have to have the right bureaucrat on your side to get it to happen for your benefit. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Quite honestly, the best reason to oppose foreign adventures of the type the US is now engaged in is that they are extremely expensive, and we don't have the money to spend on them. What they're spending the money on is a lot less important to me than the fact that my kids are going to end up having to pay off the loan--long after the current decision makers are retired. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

It's not that simple, for two reasons: 1) The Obama administration is trying to impose control on the entirety of the financial sector--including firms who never received any bailout money. 2) Many conditions have been imposed _after_ the bailout was received. As a result, several large financial companies are trying to give back the bailout money they received--and the treasury has yet to accept it. 3) Originally, the conditions imposed by the bailout were things that would prevent the banks from taking additional risks, and push them back toward fiscal sanity. Lately, though, we've seen a move toward additional conditions that actually push the banks toward making _bad_ financial decisions (letting customers renegotiate loans so the banks end up with a loss, for example, or pushing banks to lend money to people who don't qualify under the banks criteria, in the name of "getting the economy running," even though bad loans were one of the prime drivers getting us into the current mess). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Well, who do you think is "alerting" the G20? Those guys living in trash heaps? I bet it's those holding political power in those countries, often non-democratically, who fear that economic unrest would topple them from their perches. First "stimulus" package? Big bucks for screw-up executives. Next "stimulus" package? Big bucks for third world dictators. Go, stimulus! Yeah! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Negative. The Obama adminstration wants to enforce pay limits (and oversight) on _all_ financial institutions--not just the one's receiving bailout funds. It also appears to want a permanent role for the government--not just during this crisis, or until the loans are paid off, or whatever. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

My wife actually worked with that team, and travelled with them to the Sydney Games. Watching the movie with her is like getting the extra super deluxe behind the scenes commentary. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

It's pretty obvious from the careful, deliberate and vetted "apology" statements from the White House that neither Barack Obama nor anyone on his staff knows the difference. They not only confused which of the events is for those with physical disabilities and which is for those with mental disabilities, but also attributed an official Paralympic Slogan ("Triumph of the Human Spirit") to the Special Olympics. Note that I'm not talking about the President's offhand comment, which I don't think is a big deal at all. It just bothers me that at a time when they know public scrutiny will follow the issue, they still can't get things properly identified. Let me further clarify that I do think this is actually a fairly important issue, because of the number of times I've seen someone with a physical disability being treated as if they were mentally disabled--being in a wheelchair (for example) doesn't mean that you are not a rational, functioning, intelligent adult. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Clearly, the problem is that someone, somewhere earned some money without being in a union. I think that the solution is clear. All non-union earnings since, say, 1776, should be retroactively taxed at a 100% rate. That will fix everything! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Best post ever. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Clearly the end of the world is nigh. You're stocked up on ammo, right? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I think the weird thing for me was that the official statement from the white house press office afterward seemed to confuse the Special Olympics and the Paralympics. I don't really mind the original comment, though. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Cite? Sorry, I was in error. Apparently, 2-5 percent is a more accurate approximation. The first source I found via Google (keywords: medicare administration cost): Clicky From your link: -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Medicare's administration costs are, at 2 - 8% of total costs, far less than private side of the industry. Cite? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Holding up the current US healthcare system as an example of a market is a strawman frequently used in debate, but it's totally fallacious. Currently, healthcare is the most heavily regulated, and most frequently subject to government intervention, major segment of our economy by a wide margin. Saying that failures of our system show that the market doesn't work makes no sense. A far more logical conclusion, observing the relative failures of our healthcare system (especially when contrasted with relative successes in other sectors of the economy) would be to say that obviously government intervention is the problem, and that we ought to return to a freer market in health care, which we haven't even been close to in the post WW II era. You've never actually tried to navigate Medicare, have you? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com