Alan Greenspan Believes Ben Bernanke Must Stop QE

I work for a fairly specialised project management company, we do a mix of government and private works, with a decent chunk of our work coming from the mining industry.

When we sit down to go through a government tender package we can see it is 99% of the time, a complete and utter mess, with the potential to make vastly more than their expected spend as a minimum.

The halfwits employed by these departments have basically no idea whatsoever about the job they develop a scope for, instead of going through a fairly basic industry standard process, some numpty with an arts degree will design a facility using a cad programme and Google as the basis for his/her design. they then forget to run it past their legal team and IF it goes to the contracts group, they change a couple of full stops, hit the thesaurus and add some big words, but leave the content as it was.

We look at it, work out the costs according to the scope in the tender pack, we also sit there and pre-write every Technical Query we can see we will need , and pre-write every variation to contract we know we will submit given the exceedingly poor standard of tender document and do our sums.

Government tenders are generally so poorly written and controlled we always make an extra 50% on our original tender price without batting an eyelid.

When we do tenders for mining companies, the tenders are usually so tight and well defined that we often tender on cost plus rather than developing the full tender.

And before anyone mentions the "morality" or tries to lay a guilt trip down on the above, let me say, I see raping these halfwits for all they (should read we) have, as performing a public good!

I love taking money from these incompetent fools, most of the guys i work with are stackers and/or preppers, and most weeks we raise our glasses to the weak minded incompetents that add to our stacks

 

"And before anyone mentions the "morality" or tries to lay a guilt trip down on the above, let me say, I see raping these halfwits for all they (should read we) have, as performing a public good!"



You mean taxpayers?

 

Yep, i guess i do, hence the (should read we) quote

I use the rationale that "it" will be done anyway, it might as well be done by an Australian owned and run company.

The fact that I make good $$ is a fringe benefit

 

You are not alone, the school halls debacle was a horrible rip off of taxpayers money, and used mainly for the benefit of building workers and unions.

OC

 

Lehman Brothers had the same attitude towards their customers.

 

BINGO! We have a winner!

I believe the plan all along is to destroy the financial markets and create havoc.
Otherwise people won't beg for NWO and One World Government, will they?

I know some people will think I'm a conspiracy nut, but you just watch how events are going to unfold and make up your own mind.
And halfwits like Greenspan and Bernarke don't even know for what team they're playing.
No wonder it looks like they were selected for the job based on their incompetence.

 

In my view, Ben's primary goal is to generate enough inflation to erase the US debt load inside a year. The social repercussions of such a policy will worry him not one bit. The term "stimulus" is pure BS.

I cannot see any variation of the EU or the UN (NWO or OWG) will ever be accepted by the USA first, and then other major countries on Earth.

300 million US firearms will see to that.


JMO



OC

 

Some people are saying that. As quoted below.

Then why is no private company willing to take on the task of fixing major fundamental infrastructure projects in the US? Or in Australia no private company is willing to build a MUCH needed fiber internet upgrade? The reality is these project will take a very long time before they create a money profit so most private company's will not touch them. In this case you need someone like the government/ tax payers to fund them, as even though they will not generate a money profit for a long time they will generate great value to the people now and will generate a very large money profit in the distant future.

Also regarding the "indebts millions of people (including children) for decades to come" That's more to do with the corrupt and messed up system where by a government has to borrow money from some corrupt bank. If a government just issued its own debt then this would not be an issue. But unfortunately every president that tried to do this got killed. We live in a very strange world

 

Shiney! no doubt was referring to real net benefit - i.e. where the benefits outweigh the costs. Even if only one car drives on a Government built road that one person is benefitting. Is it worth the million(s) dollars to build it? They have no way of knowing because it isn't a user pays system. Many government expenditures are a complete waste, but you and I were specifically talking about infrastructure. (We should form a committee to discuss further and then we can report back to the Steering Committee. )

Private companies are willing to fund whatever infrastructure projects are really needed including fibre, rail, water, waste management, roads, buildings, schools, hospitals, airports, satellites, ships, cranes, factories, R&D etc. Given a free hand there is nothing they won't fund if it is of sufficient expected benefit to the individual, family, community, nation or the world. To assume they won't is simply ludicrous. To assume you need govt to fund them is simply saying that the anticipated real benefits are insufficient to warrant the expenditure - in which case they should not be funded at all as it is a poor use of scarce resources to fund some bureaucrats brain fart and society is poorer because of it. Using the argument that it produces low benefit now but super-huge benefits at some unknown point in the dim distant future ["trust me, I made a spreadsheet"] is also flawed as that future is so uncertain that you are simply squandering resources in the present.

Evolution achieved brilliant things by taking incremental steps working with what was at hand. In hindsight nobody would build a giraffe with a recurrent laryngeal nerve that runs from the base of the brain, all the way down the neck, around the arteries of the heart only to travel all the way back up the neck to the larynx. It's completely ridiculous and requires of host of other systems to compensate for the 15 feet detour. But that's what you might end up with if you didn't know that you wanted to build a giraffe when you started from the rudimentary even-toed ungulate. Similarly, when there is no clear goal of what the future wants may look like you build incrementally from current technologies and known (or anticipated) wants and if society ends up telling you that they actually want a sheep, a goat, a cow and a giraffe you'll end up producing slightly imperfect versions of all of them with the benefit of usable sub-versions everyday while you were "waiting" for the giraffe to be supplied by the market.

Under the government funded model the world would eventually get the perfectly engineered giraffe but no sheep, cows or goats. In addition, you would have had nothing usable in the time you were waiting around with the whole project being a drain on your current productive capacity. Could the govt funded perfectly engineered giraffe project result in random other R&D spin-offs like velcro and a better sprocket? Of course - a large bunch of humans are involved in innovative endeavours and it would be a rare project where at least some spin-off learning was not achieved. It doesn't justify theft and inefficiency to fund a brain fart though.

The Government created the corrupt messed up system so the blame is theirs. Encouraging them to issue their own debt with even less checks and balances than trying to pay their current interest bills is just a one way road to Weimar Republic. That's why many people stack in the first place.

 

It wasn't too long ago i would have agreed with everything your saying, but over time my views have change a bit. Though i still agree with some of what your saying i no longer agree with all of it.

I previously thought pure free market was the way to go, but now I sit a bit more in the middle feeling both have their role to play. Though the middle balanced option is always the hardest to achieve.

So yes i agree government waste a lot of resources, but so do a lot of private company's. I mean have to seen how much useless crap there is in this world, most of which was created by the private sector to meet the needs of the very wasteful individual. And at the same time both government and private sectors have created amazing infrastructure and overall progress which have been very beneficial to the individual.

Also yes Government created the corrupt messed up system, but it was the free market and private company that created the government. So i think its a bit of the chicken or the egg argument.

So I'm happy to agree to disagree, as everyone will have a slightly different idea of what they feel is the better system.

 

Your useless crap is my bargain. My gold plated awesome Canberra roads is all Australians debt (thanks BTW, but wished you'd built it somewhere warmer. Please do better next time. ).

Private company waste is typically periodically punished by the market and subject to corrections. In the meantime the only thing keeping it happening is people willingly buying their overpriced crap in a way that does not affect your wallet.

Government waste is vaguely addressed every now and then through Ministerial direction and/or media grabbing hold of a story. More often it's simply covered up by rigging the "market" so that an SOE covers costs or (in the case of a capital intensive asset) simply gets wiped from memory as the next budget cycle comes around.

Curious idea that you think it was "free market and private company that created the government" :/

 

I never said this. I said it wont produce a money profit soon, but will provide a huge advantage to the individual now.

So what private company was willing to go alone and build the NBN? Something that was greatly needed.

Really? so when resources get used for rubbish and then drive up the prices for those resources, thus making it cost more for the things i need. how is that not affecting my wallet?

So how did it come about then? reptilians?

 

We've done the NBN debate to death on various other threads but it essentially boils down to what individuals were willing to pay for it compared to something else they need/want in the meantime (cancer treatment perhaps)? There were plenty of people willing to pay the price in the cities and major regional towns and plenty of telecomm providers willing to take the risk of pre-empting the needs/wants. There did not seem to be enough to warrant rolling it out nationally which simply means it's not what the Australian market really wanted compared to another choice in spending their meagre resources. Perhaps the average Australian wanted more wireless capacity to better operate their smartphones and iPads in the near term and the Internet TV-on-demand and all the 3D-virtual porn you can want in 20 seconds could wait a few years until the cost of supplying NBN to every home in every backwater came down naturally as the network augmentation costs became smaller and smaller. That it has high value to some people now and that others will use the monopoly provided infrastructure once its there is not a justification for forcing every Australian to pay for it now whether they want to or not. I do not walk into my neighbours house and reach into their wallet because I want to build a brothel with attached casino within walking distance so why should they dip into my wallet because they want fibre to their home? They'll benefit from not having me drink driving on my way home every Tuesday and Saturday so it's only fair that they pay goddammit!

Edit: And in terms of the last point - I never realised they were "your" resources. If so then don't sell them to people who make crap and the problem is solved.

 

Religion combined with a bunch of thugs with better weapons would be my first guess. I think they bashed our original reptilian overlords from planet Xenu to death.

 

I'm sure when the road system started there would of been some people that would of said "why do we have to waste all this money on useless roads, I'm happy riding a horse." mmm I wonder if they still feel roads are useless. I'm sure they gain A lot of benefits from it once it was fully operational. The same when copper for telecommunications was rolled out, I'm sure a lot of people would of thought what a waste of money. Now everything we do relies on that network due to the internet discovery, something that was unknown when being developed. Just because some people are very VERY short sighted doesn't not mean everyone should stop progress.

Having a faster internet connection is more about the things we haven't invented yet, it opens up more possibility like remote operations. Imaging someone in a remote location being able to have surgery by a world class surgeon, which is only now possible because there is a high bandwidth and very stable connection. Something Wireless can not provide.

Think this is moving into a NBN thread

 

Fabianism, socialism and the welfare state arose from the free market capitalism of the industrial revolution in response to the excesses and disasters of the industrial age.

In New York a law was introduced for fire escapes on every building after 150 or so young women died in a garment factory (sweat shop) fire. No fire escape company saw a great opportunity before then, nor did most landlords.

Same place, and in the early days, private fire brigades often let houses burn and fire spread for their economic advantage versus that of the unfortunate neighbourhood.

There are endless examples. Nothing is black or white. Somewhere between absolute control and absolute freedom is the point of mutual benefit.

This fellow summarises it well:

http://politics.as.nyu.edu/object/AdamPrzeworski.html

But oops - educated as a communist so who knows?

 

The US only has vestiges of the free market remaining.

The most managed economies in the world have resulted in the most deaths and overall suffering in the world. When the US was almost completely laissez faire was when it was the richest country on Earth. It built a massive govt and military on top of that and now look at it. In massive debt and essentially bankrupt from welfare/warfare.

You're Martian who came down to worth would say "what's a govt?" And then "really, you guys pay these people to push you around and bully you? Really?? And you pretend that they are your servants? What are you thinking?" and then "So you take on huge debts through this govt to pay for stuff you want and shove the massive repayments on your kids? Really, what are YOU people thinking?!?!?"

 

Interesting discussion. I honestly don't understand how we can label any society by where tax collection is a monopoly as democratic.

Reading the various arguments put forward here I think a system of capitalist democracy should satisfy most opinions.

If we redefined "parties" as effectively charities with the responsibility to wisely spend our taxes. Rather than select what party is in charge every few years, allow them all to be in charge of their area of interest at any time. Allow the "voters" to vote simply by selecting what partys their tax contributes to. And allow for change their vote at any time so parties were accountable for their actions in real time.

Of course a lot of current charities could simply slot in and do the good work they already do. Now as a taxpayer you get to decide where your tax dollars go consider your options. Some options like the sallies are run by volunteers, have a history of providing for those most in need within our communities and come with hands on experience at this. Other options like your labour party come with highly paid leaders, little to no hands on experience actually helping anyone and campaign on a history of handouts and wastage. Where would you put your vote/tax$$s?

Hypothetically a high portion the tax payers elect parties campaigning in one particular sector, lets say on welfare type direction. This imbalance could be identified and corrected by the taxpayers in real time. Those taxpayers who rely on roads and transport to
Run their business would fast identify that they need to elect to contribute to the road building parties. Again within whatever parties chose this campaign platform would compete for funding. Best roads, best value grows in support. Failures meet their demise. Other taxpayers with different needs might redirect their welfare contributions to areas the feel better suit their needs.

There would be no room for "professional voters" as those who rely on handouts don't really pay tax. They would be free to choose but their contribution would change nothing. Much similar to the illusion of choice we all have now.

Infrastructure needs could be serviced by specific parties with the knowledge and motivation to do one thing well. The experts campaigning for your tax contribution to a vital project would be able to build as fast as the population decided.

Healthcare would be provided to the level taxpayers taxpayers directly choose.

Local parties could campaign on local issues allowing the choice of our tax being spent by a federal government on federal issues or kept locally providing for the local population.

All with the ability to split your contribution between as many parties as you see fit. And finally government could morph from the guys who take our tax under a monopoly system and tell us what to do to one where they compete for our taxes and do what we want.

 

Aah, no he doesn't. It's utter rubbish. One of the main reasons to stack is the wealth stealing, distortionary effects of the banking system on steroids since the creation of the Fed. As Hawkeye said, if you think the US in the 20th Century is anything like a free market economy then you've swallowed the propaganda in full.

And the fire escape example is similarly superficial rubbish but I can't be stuffed tapping out links etc as it is becoming increasingly obvious that you distrust and hate anything you can't control directly - government or private. It's almost become a form of schizophrenia or something recently.