At least fix the problem.

As a strategic planner, one of my pet peeves is people creating plans that don’t accomplish their objectives at all, waste resources and cause problems instead of solving them.

Government – does this a lot. We tend to get the most expensive options, that don’t solve the problem they are intended to solve – but cause an astonishing amount of collateral damage.

As a citizen -  I’m furious about the collateral damage caused. Most of the time it is totally unnecessary to cause that damage. It is literally the planner not caring at all if they cause harm or not. So they don’t plan to mitigate harm.

And honestly – that wouldn’t be so horrible IF they accomplished their stated objectives – but often – they don’t. So – we get a new expensive harm causing problem in addition to the original problem, which is still a problem. 

For example – goal: Reduce # elective abortions.

None of the anti abortion laws passed – do this. At. All. People who want elective abortions – can get them. They have time to travel or find alternative methods – because it’s elective. So – if they want an elective abortion, they can go get them.  

The only people the anti-abortion laws harm – are people in medically precarious situations who don’t have time to shop around. Those people now have fewer doctors to help them because lots of OBGYNs are now just GYNs because they don’t want to risk jail or expensive legal hassles just for helping to keep their clients alive. Those that are able to find a obstetrical doctor may also have problems if they experience a medical emergency. For instance: the doctors at the emergency room have to consider whether they will be charged with crimes if they save your life. And most aren’t willing to take that risk – so we now have women dying in hospital parking lots because the doctors choose to stay out of jail instead of saving someone’s life.

My beef? The laws don’t stop elective abortions. They just cause unnecessary collateral damage. And it infuriates me!

Border security? Same thing. The border is still open because the courts ruled we can’t close them. Want to stop people from coming to the border? That requires conditions in the country of origin to be good enough that people don’t want to leave.  Want to deport people more quickly? That requires resources to be allocated to the deportation process. Something that the people who want to deport people have repeatedly, for decades, refused to allocate resources to.

It is infuriating me as a strategic planner. Not only is the human toll of these bad policies intolerable, we are wasting huge sums doing things that don’t fix the problem!  

It would be cheaper to solve the problem. But I think that is the point. As soon as we ask who benefits from this it becomes clear.  By not solving the problem and instead – paying huge sums to private contractors to do things that don’t work, we are funneling our wealth to oligarchs. That is why the people who want to incarcerate and deport are so eager to do that. There is a huge amount of money to be made causing human suffering. And if you fix the underlying problem, all that money will no longer flow to oligarchs.

So we can't fix the border, because to do so would be less expensive and the oligarch's wouldn't get their money. Our money. 

Speaking of Oligarchs:

Let's discuss the oligarchy and the employee purge. One of the plans of the incoming administration is: to purge our government agencies and our military of anyone disloyal to the new president. 

According to project 2025, they plan to replace public servants with corporate consultants, which is again, a boon to oligarchs and the massive consulting firms who will win these contracts.

Here are the problems with this plan. 

Problem 1) you are replacing employees who work for the American people, with employees who work for an oligarch. They aren't going to be loyal to we the people. They won't even be loyal to the president. They are going to be loyal to the people who pay them, who are the oligarchs. This is insanely bad for we the people. 

2) Institutional expertise is purged – in purges. So instead of people who understand the problems and how to best solve them, you get people who don't know how to solve the problem. 

3) It’s is always more expensive to outsource employment than it is to employ people yourself. Why? Because privatization is a way to create a spoils system where some of the money that was supposed to go towards helping people is instead siphoned off for private profit.

Basically, we pay more, and get less and the workers aren't loyal to we the people. 

It's annoying

It's really really really annoying that this is happening. We are going to have more suffering and it's going to cost us more to not fix our problems.  The least they could do - is fix the problems. They won't. There is too much money to be made. 

Oligarchy vs. Capitalism

I was asked about this the other day.  Are people confusing oligarchy with capitalism and blaming capitalism for the excesses of oligarchy. I'm not an expert - but yes. 

The problem with oligarchy is that decisions are made to benefit the oligarchs - not to benefit the proletariat. And yes - I am going to go into Marx here. His model of how capitalism functions is still the most accurate ever produced. There are several things that happen that are bad over all in an oligarchical system.

1. abusing anyone is bad. There is no other justification required to demand it not happen. It's harmful. Period.
2. 2nd. When the people creating capital (the workers) do not get a share of the capital they create - that is inherently abusive and therefore bad.
3. 3rd - we start moving into economic issues. When workers cannot afford to consume the goods they create - the market for the goods is necessarily reduced. Businesses only exist if there are customers to purchase the goods and services being offered. No customers - no business. From a purely economic standpoint (if we ignore the moral problems with abusing people) - to create a healthy economy - we need to create consumers. Enough consumers to help fuel the economy. Paying workers too little means they don't have the means to consume basic goods and services. And this depresses the economy and collapses it. Workers must make a living wage or the economy suffers from lack of consumers as there are never enough oligarchs or bourgeoisie to fuel growth or consumption.
4. 4th - hoarding of wealth means money doesn't circulate. Think of money as the lifeblood of the economy. A healthy body is one where the blood flows freely throughout the body. If blood starts pooling and collecting in one part of the body - it's a toxic life threatening situation. The same is true of wealth. It has to flow and be consumed and move in order for the economic system to be healthy. When wealth starts to accumulate and get hoarded - it's been taken out of the system entirely. You are basically draining the system of it's life blood. The money cannot be used to create more wealth or goods or services. This happens because - hoarded wealth is not being distributed to the people people who helped create the wealth and who would actually spend it - the members of the proletariat. Basically - wealthy hoarding is stealing. It's inherently abusive.
5. 5th The income inequality that occurs by design in oligarchical systems creates income inequality - which is one of the leading drivers of societal violence. The more inequality there is - the more violence. The more equality there is - the less violence there is. Hoarding of wealth through oligarchy is bad not just because it restricts the flow of capital and harms the economy, and not just because it necessarily requires the exploitation of workers, but also because all of this increases the general levels of violence in society.

Oligarchies are not capitalist systems. They may look like unbridled capitalism - but a capitalist system is also a system of laws - laws that dictate the flow of capital. Oligarchies are systems of laws that allow for the hoarding of wealth - the exact opposite.

Basically- think of oligarchies as systems of legalized theft. The reason Russia has oligarchs - is they literally stole 52% of the wealth of the country - and took it out of the country. It's legalized theft.  A form of kleptocracy.

Capitalist systems allow for the flow of capital. Not the hoarding of capital.  Capitalist systems can be abusive, but they can also be humanistic.  Wealth creation is good for everyone, assuming the wealth created is equitably distributed and used to help improve society.  If wealth is created and hoarded and used to abuse - it's bad.

So - let's recognize wealth hoarding for what it is - abusive theft and start insisting that capital flow to everyone and be used to create and improve society - humanistically.