MSNBC Edits Mitt Romney Speech To Make Him Look Silly

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by brickbacon

You keep saying this as if it is supposed to mean something. The government is not "more efficient" because that is not typically a goal of government or a metric by which it should logically be judged. It's like saying the human body is not efficient because you are born with an appendix and two kidneys. I mean, why should we lug around an extra kidney, it's inefficient. If the human body were designed with private sector efficiency in mind, it might would fail the user far more often even if it was more "efficient" for the average person.

Similarly government is "inefficient" for a number of legitimate, intrinsic reasons. The most important reason being that inefficiency exists because private sector failure rates and outcomes are usually not acceptable. Sixty percent of restaurants fail in the first 3 years. How comfortable would you be if the IRS, FEMA, or the FBI completely blew up every few years?

Second, even in situations where the private and public sectors perform similar jobs, many externalities do not count against the company's bottom line. A private company might be able to run a DMV cheaper than the government, but they don't have to pay cops to enforce the laws, nor do they need to maintain and create roads that incentivize people to drive in the first place. The government provides a web of services that cannot easily be differentiated, or measured on a profit and loss statement.

Third, government is guided by principles that often preclude efficiency. Is it efficient for each state to have 2 senators and several representatives? Of course not, but our constitutional principles dictate that we must in order to fulfill our obligations to our citizens. Republics are not efficient. Checks and balances are not efficient. Elections are not efficient. Jury trials are not efficient. Dictatorships are. That's not to say there is no middle ground, but our system is in part designed to be inefficient in accordance with our principles.

Fourth, government is obligated to step in to situations where the private sector has failed. They cover medical bills for the poor, provide insurance to people who cannot otherwise get it, and spend money to conduct unprofitable scientific research. The government often steps in when potential profit does not provide enough of an incentive for the private sector to act. Government must work for those who fall through the cracks. Cracks that often exists because the private sector decided that filling them was bad for business.

For all those reasons and many more, I wish you would really stop with this nonsense about government inefficiency relative to the private sector. They are generally not comparable, and acting as if they are just to make a rhetorical point is dishonest.

Yeesh. I don't think you've read all my points. I basically agree with everything you wrote. I think the position is nonsensical. The ONLY reason I brought it up is that levdrakon thinks that using an example to illustrate a point is the same as using an example to illustrate no point. Romney was using his examples to support (cavalierly, yes) the notion that the private sector tends to be much more efficient than the federal government. (For the many reasons you listed.) Perfect examples or poor, that's legitimate. Cherry-picking examples that would go to make the opposite point would be ridiculous. The only thing more ridiculous would be bringing up and contrasting to things that are representative of no point. THAT has been my point.

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

I would.

Corporations have to make a profit to maintain their existence. Governments do not. So a government can theoretically do something at cost while a corporation cannot afford to do that.

Suppose the absolutely most efficient way to deliver a letter from Boston to Seattle costs forty cents. The government can charge you forty cents to deliver that letter. They don't have to make a profit. But if a private company tried to deliver that letter for forty cents it would end up going broke. In order to stay in business, a private company would have to charge you forty-one cents so it could make a profit off every letter it delivered. And no matter what new ideas you invent that need for profit will always be there.

So, we agree that private enterprises are more efficient than the federal government. Excellent. Where we disagree is the degree to which the pressure to make a profit and stay in business may drive efficiencies that would never materialize without the pressure there. If your position that is correct, then wouldn't the government always be able to provide the same service for less money? But more and more, services are being farmed out to private enterprises with better results an a cost savings.

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by elucidator

Why, when you put it that way, it seems so simple!

Simple enough for even you to state whether you agree with that sentence to r not?

Evidently not.

[levdrakon]

Originally Posted by magellan01

Yeesh. I don't think you've read all my points. I basically agree with everything you wrote. I think the position is nonsensical. The ONLY reason I brought it up is that levdrakon thinks that using an example to illustrate a point is the same as using an example to illustrate no point.

What? I think his point was that business is better when you eliminate people and make it more efficient and profitable while the government just wastes paper. Bad government!

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by levdrakon

What? I think his point was that business is better when you eliminate people and make it more efficient and profitable while the government just wastes paper. Bad government!

I'm not surprised to hear that you think that.

[Euphonious Polemic]

Originally Posted by magellan01

He was making a simple point. He took one example from the private sector and one from the federal government. He held up the former as the what happens when the completive forces of the private sector come to bear on something as simple as ordering a sandwich. He contrasted that with an example from the federal government, which is not the product of such pressure. .

So the private sector is good at something simple like ordering a sandwich. Bully for them. And he contrasted that with something completely different that the federal government does that is NOT simple. Do you begin to see the problem here? Perhaps these are not comparable things?

And I also made a simple point in post # 154. I took one example from the private sector (bank giving a mortgage) and one from the government (changing my address a the DMV). I held up the latter as what happens when the "completive" forces of the public sector come to bear on something as simple as a change of address. I contrasted this with an example from the private sector, which clearly cannot deliver a mortgage with the same efficiency as the DMV allows me to change my address.

This was meant to illustrate how Romney's comparison was idiotic.

So, as others here will see (and you, no doubt will not), the comparison Romney made is ludicrous, laughable, and downright foolish.

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by Euphonious Polemic

So the private sector is good at something simple like ordering a sandwich. Bully for them. And he contrasted that with something completely different that the federal government does that is NOT simple. Do you begin to see the problem here? Perhaps these are not comparable things?

And I also made a simple point in post # 154. I took one example from the private sector (bank giving a mortgage) and one from the government (changing my address a the DMV). I held up the latter as what happens when the "completive" forces of the public sector come to bear on something as simple as a change of address. I contrasted this with an example from the private sector, which clearly cannot deliver a mortgage with the same efficiency as the DMV allows me to change my address.

This was meant to illustrate how Romney's comparison was idiotic.

So, as others here will see (and you, no doubt will not), the comparison Romney made is ludicrous, laughable, and downright foolish.

It;s only ludicrous if you think that he offered it up as proof of the proposition that the private sector is more efficient than the federal government, due to the role competition plays in the first entity and the lack of it in the second. It's only ludicrous if you think that a stump speech should be judged the same way a white paper should be.

You're making the same mistake that levdrakon made. Look, if you believe in the general proposition that the private sector is more efficient than the federal government (something that should be taken as a given) then if you contrast an example of efficiency from the private sector with an apparent inefficiency from the government, what you're doing is making sense. Sure, there are better comparisons and worse ones. That's also a given. But your examples align with the larger point your trying to make.

The examples that you and levdrakon give or meaningless, as they do not go to making a larger point—unless you, or he, believe that the federal government is more efficient than the private sector. Otherwise you're just comparing things for now reason: oreos and the moon are round, but ores are smaller. Gah!

And again, his example was not something offered up in a thesis or a white paper. It was a friggin' stump speech. OMG, Romney tried to make his point while at the same time pandering to the locals. Unbelievable that a politician would do such a thing!!! It was not offered to prove the proposition, only to be an example that contrast the two entities. And on that level, it was perfectly valid.

[Euphonious Polemic]

Originally Posted by magellan01

And again, his example was not something offered up in a thesis or a white paper. It was a friggin' stump speech. OMG, Romney tried to make his point while at the same time pandering to the locals. Unbelievable that a politician would do such a thing!!! It was not offered to prove the proposition, only to be an example that contrast the two entities. And on that level, it was perfectly valid.

So you basically admit it was not supposed to be a well thought out position; rather it was simply "pandering to the locals"

In this, we agree.

[levdrakon]

Will we be able to tell when Mitt stops "pandering to the locals?"

[Robot Arm]

Originally Posted by levdrakon

Will we be able to tell when Mitt stops "pandering to the locals?"

The moment his hand is off the bible, if not sooner.

[etv78]

I live in MA and this thread is the 1st I'm hearing of Wawa.

[brickbacon]

Originally Posted by magellan01

Yeesh. I don't think you've read all my points. I basically agree with everything you wrote. I think the position is nonsensical. The ONLY reason I brought it up is that levdrakon thinks that using an example to illustrate a point is the same as using an example to illustrate no point.

You say this, then you reiterate the same point question moments later. If you agree with what I said, you wouldn't continually ask the question expected a concrete answer. See below.

Originally Posted by magellan01

So, we agree that private enterprises are more efficient than the federal government.

Again, asking this question without realizing you are comparing apples to car wrenches is silly. If a private company was tasked to take on all the roles government does, I don't think it's a given they would be more efficient.

Originally Posted by magellan01

But more and more, services are being farmed out to private enterprises with better results an a cost savings.

This is just flatly untrue. Even in cases where typical government services are privatized, very few of them result in any cost-savings that are passed on to consumers or the government. Two recent examples of this are prisons and roads. Ask someone from Indiana about how they like paying the tolls on privatized roads. No need to rely on anecdotes either. A recent study from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, linked to here, states the following:

The study resulted in some interesting conclusions. For example, it was discovered that, rather than the projected 20-percent savings, the average saving from privatization was only about 1 percent, and most of that was achieved through lower labor costs.

More examples here:

About 75 percent of Pennsylvania’s school districts now use private firms to bus their students. Yet according to a new study by the Keystone Research Center (KRC), “Contracting out substantially increases state spending on transportation services. We estimate that if all districts switched to the self-supply of transportation services, total spending on student transportation services would fall by $78.3 million dollars…”

Another example:

In 1994 the Republicans took over the House of Representatives and immediately began to privatize Medicare. Their first step, achieved in 1997 with the support of President Clinton was Medicare+Choice. But the Republicans made a serious tactical mistake. They were so confident in the inherent superiority of the private sector they didn’t ask for a handicap. Private insurers received the same amount as the service cost under Medicare.

The private sector lost the race. Badly. Private insurers began pulling out en masse. In 2000, more than 900,000 patients were dropped from the program.

No one should have been surprised. Private insurers overhead costs (marketing, profits, etc.) “dwarf” (pdf) those of Medicare: Slightly under 17 percent compared to about 5 percent for Medicare. So to become competitive the private sector required at least a 12 percent handicap.

Which private insurers received when Medicare Advantage replaced Medicare+Choice in 2003. The federal government now pays private insurers on average 14 percent more than the same care would cost under traditional Medicare.

So no. Even when private companies don't have to shoulder all the costs, they still don't do things cheaper or more efficiently (in general terms) on a regular basis.

That said, please stop trying to compare government "efficiency" to that of the private sector. Whether you are merely asking the question, or accepting it as a given, it's a fundamentally dishonest and nonsensical exercise, and you know that.

Originally Posted by etv78

I live in MA and this thread is the 1st I'm hearing of Wawa.

Did you travel the country 4 years ago running for president? Have you been to NJ several times in the last few years for political events? Where you employed as a governor, nominally in charge of bringing business to your state? Like I said before, I can imagine some/many people in Mass. have never heard of Wawa, but it was pretty much his job to know these things. Wawa is not some small company. They employ 16k+ people, and have 4.5 billion in revenue. They are about the 65th biggest private company in the US. They are roughly the same size as companies like Bloomberg and Kohler. If the CEO of a company that big calls the governor, the governor picks up the phone. For Romney to seemingly be unaware of the company is strange to say the least.

[Bricker]

Originally Posted by brickbacon

Did you travel the country 4 years ago running for president? Have you been to NJ several times in the last few years for political events? Where you employed as a governor, nominally in charge of bringing business to your state? Like I said before, I can imagine some/many people in Mass. have never heard of Wawa, but it was pretty much his job to know these things. Wawa is not some small company. They employ 16k+ people, and have 4.5 billion in revenue. They are about the 65th biggest private company in the US. They are roughly the same size as companies like Bloomberg and Kohler. If the CEO of a company that big calls the governor, the governor picks up the phone. For Romney to seemingly be unaware of the company is strange to say the least.

How did we morph from his calling them "Wawa's" instead of "Wawa" to being unaware of the company's existence?

[Blkshp]

Originally Posted by pseudotriton ruber ruber

You do know that most of these regulations are for your protection, right?

I mean, you're not the sort of jackass who wants the bank to lend money to just anyone who claims to be you, and then comes looking for you to pay the loan back, are you? And you want the bank to make sure you have the ability to repay the loan, don't you, so that everyone doesn't have to chip in when your unemployed ass defaults on the loan, right? The bank will be happy to lend you money with whichever additional charges and fees can be hidden in fine print, only the government requires them to spell out the limit of their fees--you don't want them to be able to do that, right?

Etc.

Yeah, I do. Did you miss the part where he held up the mortgage loan process as an example of private sector innefficiency? Half the documents (or more, depending on how you count) are not the requirement of the lender, they are a requirement the lender has to fulfill for the government. Whether they are "protective" or not - neccessary or not - that's a different discussion. Clear title and an agreement to repay (the note) are all you'd really need to make such a loan, at least privately.

[gamerunknown]

Of those laws, I could only find out that the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act was submitted by a Democrat and allegedly granted powers that could have mitigated the effect of subprime mortgages and that the Patriot Act had 210 Republicans and 145 Democrats voting for it (3 Republicans and 62 Democrats voting against).

As for efficient markets...

Here's an apple and bicycle comparison, too.

[brickbacon]

Originally Posted by Bricker

How did we morph from his calling them "Wawa's" instead of "Wawa" to being unaware of the company's existence?

Fair point. Perhaps I overstate things somewhat. I think it's fair to say to say he was, at the very least, noticeably impressed by a system they have had in place for at least 10 years. I remember seeing stoned teenagers confounded by that system in the wee hours of the morning on a regular basis at least as far back as 2001. That alone tells me he is likely not too familiar with the store. Couple that with him mispronouncing the name repeatedly, and speaking about them like a lovestuck teenage girl, and I I think it's a fair bet he has, at most, a passing acquaintance with the brand and the stores. That said, it may be going a bit too far to imply he has no awareness of their existence.