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Re:Declining trust in government is denting democracy (2017) by roenxi on Saturday June 19, 2021 @11:31AM (#27561354)
> They don’t want to actually reduce governments ability to make war or jail people etc.

Fir enough. Put it another way. People look at this institution which can't balance a budget, is typically controlled by lunatics between 30-60% of the time and which apparently nobody really trusts. And it is controlled by billionaire oligarchs and the worst of the entrenched business interests.

They then think "gee, this is the group I want to actively administer my municipal broadband. Nobody better!".

I'm fairly open that I don't like governments. But how do the people who don't trust the thing square that with then calling for it to be actively involved in all sorts of random stuff? What is the thought process here?

Re:Declining trust in government is denting democracy (2017) by orwin on Saturday June 19, 2021 @12:42PM (#27562020)
> People look at this institution which can't balance a budget

The issue with this is that most people, and even economists (well, mostly old economists rotting away from the research and debate the field is having right now) don't understand that you don't make a government budget like you make a home budget. Hell, you don't even make a government budget like you make a multinational company budget. People who don't even try to understand how bank works should not have any say in this.

Re:Declining trust in government is denting democracy (2017) by candiodari on Sunday June 20, 2021 @09:18AM (#27569650)
This only goes for the central bank, so this only applies, partially, to the Federal government. Every other government, certainly municipal or state governments, have budgets that do work like a "home budget" (more like a very large company I'd say, but fair enough, if you had a $100 million/billion household, it would probably be similar).

Second, you're making this argument to advocate for more spending. You're not referring to the alternate rules. So let's see: what are the rules for central bank spending, and what do they say now?

The alternative set of rules: spending inversely proportional to the distance between inflation and the inflation target (ie. 2%). Inflation is over 2%, yes, sounds unbelievable but it is [1], hence ... the central bank should seriously CUT it's budget. It should NOT spend at this time (well ... spend less, for now).

So people make this argument only insofar it benefits more government spending. If one were to describe the current spending situation "due to lack of inflation in the past 10 years or so, the government has massively increased spending through the central bank, if the recent inflation doesn't back down in 2-3 months or so, the central bank budget will need to be cut by a LOT, and soon".

What the rules say, is that the government, in the last 10 or so years (a bit less), should have used tax money to lower the national debt and now should increase that debt (and raise taxes in 2-3 years) to spend.

The FED, btw, has already announced they will in fact be cutting spending by a lot next year, BTW. They are scared they have severely overdone it, so I would be expecting a large cut rather than a small one. So you're warned. The government (including, for that matter, EU governments) will be cutting spending next year, you won't get a raise, but inflation will rise. Except, perhaps, if you're living in one of the countries that benefit from this (last time especially Australia spectacularly benefitted: they bought their way out of the housing crisis, essentially for free).

[1] https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_inflation_rate#:~:text=US%....

Re:Declining trust in government is denting democracy (2017) by thatguy0900 on Saturday June 19, 2021 @08:49PM (#27565985)
"People look at this institution which can't balance a budget, is typically controlled by lunatics between 30-60% of the time and which apparently nobody really trusts." While that's true, the management of att and Comcast are worse. The gov is incompetent but they are actively malicious. There are no good guys in this fight. And at least you can in theory vote about how the government handles it.
Re:Declining trust in government is denting democracy (2017) by Retric on Saturday June 19, 2021 @11:53AM (#27561555)
I think the argument goes like this. Either their local government is well run even if the state and or federal government is a mess local services like water and sewer just work fine. Alternatively, they think their local ISP is terrible and while they dislike their local government it seems slightly more competent.

That’s not to say their correct, but I am saying what’s actually happening is a power grab even if it’s spoken of as reducing power.