Posted on 12/12/2024 8:50:06 PM PST by SeekAndFind
It’s tempting, especially for a libertarian-verging-on-anarchist like me, to just assume government functionaries are inherently bad people who like doing bad things to good people.
It’s not really true — in general, people in government are doing what they think is good. So why does it seem like it’s true? Why does it so often seem that what government does is at best useless, often counterproductive, and sometimes actively harmful?
Elon Musk posted something on X a few days ago that struck me: incentives drive outcomes.
The “save the homeless” NGOs are often paid according to how many homeless people are on the streets, thus creating a strong financial incentive for them to maximize the number of homeless people and never actually solve the problem!
Incentives explain outcomes. https://t.co/ujxryf8z6d— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 10, 2024
In psychology, this is called “operant conditioning.” Put simply, it’s that a behavior that gets rewarded, gets repeated.
It’s useful, though, to analyze an existing situation going the other direction: ask what the incentives are that drive a particular behavior.
This is actually a callback to my previous memo to Musk and Ramaswamy. The short version is that government suffers from having vague, unstated, or even contradictory objectives, and no measures of success that can be verified.
As commenters pointed out, often objectives and measures thoughtlessly defined can be counter-productive. One example was customer service reps in a call center. If the number of calls handled is the measure of a CSR's production, they will optimize to shunt difficult calls aside to even hang up on them. This results in good calls-per-hour, but bad customer satisfaction.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
RE: Save the Homeless
So, we spend money on this program, Yet, year after year, there were more homeless to be “saved,” which meant a bigger budget, more staff, and of course higher compensation for the CEO. The one thing that wasn’t happening was a reduction in the number of homeless people in homes and out of the program.
But then, that wasn’t where the rewards lie.
I stead of “Save the Homeless,” it should be “Eliminate the Homeless.”
They get paychecks whether or not they work.
$$$$$
A government apparatchik gets into a comfy government service level. He wants his children and grandchildren to enjoy the perks of being a deputy assistant to the assistant chief pot stirrer too.
In two generations, the apparatchiks create a government that exists to exist. And they will ruin you if you try to cut them out.
Lifetime employment. Full retirement. Virtually no possibility of getting fired of laid off.
WHEN I WAS A KID:
We were told to NEVER feed the feral cats.
ALL you got was MORE FERAL CATS.
It is against the law to feed bears in state and national parks, why do you suppose that is? Because they become dependent! The same as our homeless! No incentive to feed themselves!
1. Greed
2. Dishonesty
Yes...along with power and self preservation.
NGOs should be outlawed.
Greed. People are making money hand over fist.
corruption across the board
A government entity exists to ensure it gets more money they next year. It has no incentive to fix a problem for if it did then the entity would no longer be needed and would cease to exist.
This is kinda like building ‘low income housing’ so we have more low income people in our community.
Instead of getting healthy low income people off their backsides and get them to go to work each day so they can afford to rent or buy regular housing.
That is by design. The most feared word in government is accountability.
They can still exist but must only be privately funded such as the NRA. They should receive no taxpayer funding because it is fundamentally unconstitutional.
The constitution grants the federal government the ability to raise taxes to pay for inherently governmental functions.
Inherently governmental functions can't be contracted out they must be performed by government employees. NGOs do not perform inherently governmental functions and thus the government has no authority expend tax dollars on them.
“””Inherently governmental functions can’t be contracted out they must be performed by government employees. NGOs do not perform inherently governmental functions and thus the government has no authority expend tax dollars on them.”””
My thoughts are that the government hires NGO’s to perform stuff that the government is prohibited from doing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.