> I know that the next step is you explaining why these don’t count, or saying “wow only 3” or whatever, but
Oh, there's more: Medicare, Social Security, the highway system.
The whole food/medicine regulatory system is also a big one, and it's the reason a lot of US (and European) products like baby formula are imported into China, because they can be more trusted.
My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "that people willingly buy" language. The flawed assumption there is the government should be conceptualized as just another company selling in the market, when the government's actual role is very different.
As with anything, they are all things that could be done better by a company.
Airlines are a great example of this. They have changed very little in the last 30 years (again, thanks to all the government regulation and red tape).
Smartphones, TVs, (and literally anything else not in the hands of the government) has also seen rapid improvements.
Anything the government handles is always rife with overspending, inefficiency, and corruption.
A company must maintain profitability to stay alive.
The government on the other hand, is $38 TRILLION dollars in the red.
Yes, the things that "people willingly buy" are the literal engine that makes all of this possible. It is not the reverse.
> As with anything, they are all things that could be done better by a company.
No
> Airlines are a great example of this. They have changed very little in the last 30 years (again, thanks to all the government regulation and red tape).
And thanks to regulations, we have less airline accidents than ever. Private companies are more than willing to "externalise" any accidents from cutting costs otherwise.
> Smartphones, TVs, (and literally anything else not in the hands of the government) has also seen rapid improvements.
So does government funded medical research, which improves the quality of life of people corporations deem "unprofitable".
> Anything the government handles is always rife with overspending, inefficiency, and corruption.
Because large corporations and rich donors lobby them to do so.
> A company must maintain profitability to stay alive.
So does a government, debt only lasts as long as the lender believes in your ability to pay it back.
> The government on the other hand, is $38 TRILLION dollars in the red.
And which of the Mag7 are not in debt? I remind you that if you wish to compare the USA to companies, they are literally an entity of over 300,000 people. No company employs that many people.
> Yes, the things that "people willingly buy" are the literal engine that makes all of this possible. It is not the reverse.
No, government enforced order is what allowed the engine to exist to begin with. No one would innovate if their IP could not be protected, and we would regress back into cartels if the government could not enforce private property.
The prosperity of the modern world is build upon a foundation of solid governance.
When I ship packages, I could choose to use a service other than USPS, but I don’t, because USPS is generally cheaper and more reliable.
I strongly prefer Medicaid to my employer-provided healthcare plans because of ease of use, and if I were allowed to I would willingly pay more money into it, either via taxes or direct premium payments, when I am making too much income to qualify.
I gladly give money to the NPS every year, even though I have a choice to pay for a private campground, or other public lands agencies.
I answered the question. You can choose to believe I didn’t all you want.
Oh yeah. I feel sooooo good dealing with Comcast. At this point in life, I spent more time on the phone with Comcast support than I ever spent time in various DMV offices.
> A company must maintain profitability to stay alive.
Yeah. And once it becomes a monopoly (like Comcast), it can just keep raising prices.
Not here. It's a natural monopoly, just like sewer lines or electric transmission.
Where I live now, I paid $50k to get a private fiber optics line just not to deal with Comcast anymore. There were no other options. We _might_ get AT&T fiber, eventually.
It has not been a monopoly here for the last 2 decades (at least). There also was Wave Broadband nearby they serve some high-rise buildings, I got a private business-class line from them.
But it was not profitable for them to expand normally. They can't offer drastically cheaper service than Comcast, the installation costs in cities are huge. I also have Starlink as a backup, and it's even slower than Comcast.
So yeah, government actually works better than commercial companies for most infrastructural needs. And in particular, municipal broadband is usually head-and-shoulders better than anything from large commercial companies. It has higher consumer satisfaction ratings and is cheaper on average.
Have you ever called the DMV? In my state it's worse than Comcast. 45min wait time when the lines open in the morning, only increasing from there.
I "owe" Comcast $200. They say I didn't cancel at an old apartment. I say I did. I have the email. They insist. They've sent me a letter once a year for a decade. About 2yr in it went to collections. They're still trying.
Imagine the consequences if I did that with government.
Say nothing of the fact that if I tried to pay it, Comcast would be able to take my money no problem. The government would take a check, ACH or charge me $5 to use a buggy 3rd party CC processing service.
And I have gone to rural DMVs and they were nice and helpful and polite. Absolutely not what most people experience just due to where population is located and how the more urban DMVs tend to be.
Listen, I'm sure if all you do is straight down the middle of whatever the DMV thinks a median peasant does, then I'm sure it works fine.
But on that same note, if all you do is sign up and then just keep paying them money forever, Comcast works fine too.
Neither of these organizations works worth a shit outside the default path. But only one of them will threaten to really screw up your life over it.
Well, ask your state to fix the issue. Perhaps elect better politicians? The states where I lived all have online booking.
And their websites are well-designed and functional. There are customer support emails and phone numbers.
> Say nothing of the fact that if I tried to pay it, Comcast would be able to take my money no problem.
About that... A couple of years ago I got locked out of AT&T because I forgot to update my credit card. And I couldn't log in because it required a (you guessed it) one-time SMS password. Their "pay your bill" needed a bill number, for which I needed to log into their website.
Their fix? Visit the store.
> Imagine the consequences if I did that with government.
A couple of years ago I accidentally overpaid the IRS (I paid the capital gains tax twice, as it was already deducted during the sale by the broker) to the tune of $10k. A year later, they sent a letter asking me for clarifications. I called them, and they sent me a refund check.
> The government would take a check, ACH or charge me $5 to use a buggy 3rd party CC processing service.
This discussion about the purpose of government is valid as a way to disagree with the "willingly buy" language, but it's still true that most of those examples don't answer the question and to refuse them is not "weaseling out".
> but it's still true that most of those examples don't answer the question
That's because the question is bad. It was meant to challenge the benefit of government, and a non-answer was meant to be interpreted as "government < business." But at its core is was fundamental misunderstanding of government, so if the question was answered mindlessly, it was unfairly biased towards the asker's biased conclusion.
> and to refuse them is not "weaseling out".
It'd be weaseling out of the faults of the question.
The proto-Internet. GPS. Nuclear energy. MRIs. Fracking. The Human Genome Project. Fiber optics. Optical data storage. Jet engines. Heck, the entire space industry. Lithium ion batteries. Radar. Night vision technology. Modern lower limb prosthetics. Just off the top of my head
Jet engines - Frank Whipple (England) and Franz Ohain (Germany) invented them. In both cases the governments were not interested in them until flying jet aircraft were demonstrated. Lockheed was ordered by the government to abandon their jet engine project and focus on piston engines instead (which resulted in the US having to get started on jet aircraft by buying British machines).
Human genome - J. Venter was the first to sequence the human genome, privately funded.
the entire space industry - Liquid fuel rockets were pioneered by Goddard, through private funding.
Radar - originated from late 19th-century experiments on radio wave reflection, pioneered by Heinrich Hertz in 1886. While Christian Hülsmeyer patented a "telemobiloscope" for ship detection in 1904
The proto-Internet - Pioneered by Samuel Morse, see "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage. Privately funded.
Whittle (Whipple is a painter) "invented" the jet engine while serving in the RAF, so technically not privately funded at the point of invention. There was private funding used later to create prototype engines.
Quite a stretch to say the Atomic Bomb was privately funded!!!
The original Whittle engine was developed with private funds.
From "The Development Of Jet And Turbine Aero Engines" by Gunston:
pg 123: of which £200 came from an old lady who ran a corner shop near Whittle's parents in Coventry
pg 123: But a direct request to Air Ministry for a research contract in October 1936 brought flat rejection,
pg 124: Whittle could see that the only possible way to proceed was to take the gigantic gamble of running a complete engine.
pg 125: Indeed, there was little money for anything. While the RAF backed Whittle in every way they could - for example, by not requiring him to take the usual examination for promotion to Squadron Leader - the Air Ministry contributed nothing to Power Jets until May 1938, and Whittle had to watch every penny. He nearly cracked under the strain, which in fact was to get worse for seven years, not because of the Problems in developing the engine, but from the suspicion and enmity with which he was regarded by officials and manufacturers, and by the outrageous behaviour of the Company picked by the Air Ministry to produce his engine.
Please, name for me one product or service that the US government has created, that people willingly buy, that has made your life tangibly better.
I can list a billion made by businesses.
Please, go for it. Just one.