Venezuela Votes No On Chavez Forever

[Richpo64]

>>Now honestly, does that sound like I "concluded" anything?<<

Oh please. Of course you are. Based on your m.o., you could be doing nothing else.

[Plane]

<<It is very unlikely [that if government came to interfere in my business, they would interfere with good ideas and not bad ones.] Much more likely they would have an unworkable idea and such an arrogant attiude that you would be entirely unable to explain why it would not work.>>

Well, I'm kind of fascinated with your preconceived notion (some would call it prejudice) that the government, if minded to interfere in my business, would be more likely to interfere by pushing bad ideas on me than by pushing good ideas.  Why can't government hire brains same as private enterprise does?  I deal with government and I don't see them as a bunch of dopes.  They're like private businesses, a whole range of intellects and abilities.  I suppose you think if some guy from McKinsey & Co. came to my office to tell me how to run things, everything out of his mouth would be gold and everything out of the government adviser's mouth would be crap.  Sorry, plane, but it's just not like that in real life.

<<Really , we are talking about a business that you have been in for many years , you really think a guy like me can make it better by makeing you do it diffrently?>>

I'd listen respectfully to anything you had to say, to anything the government had to say and to anything that McKinsey & Co. had to say.  Why would I automatically have to believe that any one of you was full of shit?

Are you new to your business?
Why don't you have an understanding of the good ideas now?

I actually don't think Canada has - - or ever had - - "central planning." 

Agreed , I am speaking entirely hypotheticly.

[Michael Tee]

<<Are you new to your business?>>

Far from it.

<<Why don't you have an understanding of the good ideas now?>>

Who says I don't?  Maybe you're confusing "an understanding of the good ideas" with infallibility and/or knowing everything there is to know.

[Michael Tee]

>>Now honestly, does that sound like I "concluded" anything?<<  [My prior post was, "It's either A or B - - only time will tell."]

Rich:  <<Oh please. Of course you are. Based on your m.o., you could be doing nothing else.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another deep thinker heard from.  He reads the signature line, not the post.  Then he responds to what he thinks the guy in the signature line WOULD have written.

I think I'll debate Rich in the future in a new way - - I'll just send blank posts with my name on them.  He can fill them in with whatever he thinks I must have said and then proceed to rip the shit out of it.   It's really a win-win situation:  He'll go from looking like a fucking idiot and losing every exchange he engages in to winning every time and looking like a genius too.  And I'll be finally relieved of the obligation to treat his Zio-Nazi idiocies seriously and still get the same laughs I always do from his bungling responses.

[Plane]

<<Are you new to your business?>>

Far from it.

<<Why don't you have an understanding of the good ideas now?>>

Who says I don't?  Maybe you're confusing "an understanding of the good ideas" with infallibility and/or knowing everything there is to know.

I think it far more likely that someone like you would come up with good ideas for your particular business , thansomeone whose expertise was getting promoted in the government.

[Michael Tee]

<<I think it far more likely that someone like you would come up with good ideas for your particular business , thansomeone whose expertise was getting promoted in the government.>>

Of course I would.  That's why government hires some people like me with actual business experience as advisors.  No matter how you slice it, sirs, governments today ARE in the business of offering advice (some of it more or less compulsory) to business and professions and like any other advisors in the public and private sectors, they're just fallible human beings.  They don't get everything right and they don't get everything wrong.  If you turn a deaf ear to them, you are running a risk.  Far better to listen and try to benefit if you can.  They don't deliberately go out of their way to hire idiots any more than McKinsey & Co. does.  Government isn't infallible and neither is McKinsey.

[Plane]

<<I think it far more likely that someone like you would come up with good ideas for your particular business , thansomeone whose expertise was getting promoted in the government.>>

Of course I would.  That's why government hires some people like me with actual business experience as advisors.  No matter how you slice it, sirs, governments today ARE in the business of offering advice (some of it more or less compulsory) to business and professions and like any other advisors in the public and private sectors, they're just fallible human beings.  They don't get everything right and they don't get everything wrong.  If you turn a deaf ear to them, you are running a risk.  Far better to listen and try to benefit if you can.  They don't deliberately go out of their way to hire idiots any more than McKinsey & Co. does.  Government isn't infallible and neither is McKinsey.

Government is the very home of the Peter principal, and is in no way more likely to produce or attract competence than the private industry.

But in Private industry incompetence fails and is forced to drop out , lots of us have been fired and had to seek other work, lots of young businesses fail and put their officers onto the job market. A government agency is likely to carry on for many years as a failure.

Of course somegovernment agencys are better than others , during the Hurricane Katrina problem the Coast Guard and military performed admirably , FEMA on the other hand bumbled around a bit being useless or even an impediment untill they finly got aroud to being useful in a second rate way late in the crisis.

What if the agency that took over your indstry were the sort of agency FEMA was (is?) or AMTRACK , or the Social Security Administration?
They could run you into the ground, hand all of your business to your over seas competition and suffer no penalty  themselves .

The stakes would be high for you , not so for them.

[Michael Tee]

I believe that the Peter Principle was discovered through a study of organizational behaviour and was universal, i.e., not limited to any one type of organization - - governmental, business or even criminal.  I don't believe there is anything preventing it from taking root in a peacetime military, although I believe the test of war - - analogous to extreme dog-eat-dog commercial competition - - would cause it to be detected and rectified much faster than otherwise.

<<What if the agency that took over your indstry were the sort of agency FEMA was (is?) or AMTRACK , or the Social Security Administration?
<<They could run you into the ground, hand all of your business to your over seas competition and suffer no penalty  themselves .>>

Always the pessimist, always the worst-case fantasist, at least when it comes to democratically elected government.  There is also the possibility that they would have insight and expertise, and could actually help my business to grow.

The reverse side of your fantasy of course is that the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed boy and girl geniuses of McKinsey & Co. would inevitably lead me to greener pastures and could never steer me wrong.

Boy are you in for a hard landing when your spacecraft finally hits Earth.

[Plane]

There is also the possibility that they would have insight and expertise, and could actually help my business to grow.

This seems less likely to me (that the government would produce experts in your industry) than that your industry would produce experts in your industry.

The reverse side of your fantasy of course is that the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed boy and girl geniuses of McKinsey & Co. would inevitably lead me to greener pastures and could never steer me wrong.

I don't think that privite industry is infallible , but the penalty for incompetence applys to private industry much better than it does to government , so the private garden is better weeded out.

[Michael Tee]

<<I don't think that privite industry is infallible , but the penalty for incompetence applys to private industry much better than it does to government , so the private garden is better weeded out.>>

Of course I would agree with you that an incompetent in government employ is better protected than one in the private sector, but how you can leap from that one truth to the conclusion that virtually nothing the government does can be helpful or effective is a total mystery to me.  I have seen quite a few instances of persons being helped along in both small business start-ups  and personal finances by government advisors when they were not in a position to pay for similar advice from private sources.  I can't recall any circumstances where anyone was harmed by it.  So at least from my own experience, I have to say that I find your predictions are totally off-the-wall.

[Plane]

<<I don't think that privite industry is infallible , but the penalty for incompetence applys to private industry much better than it does to government , so the private garden is better weeded out.>>

Of course I would agree with you that an incompetent in government employ is better protected than one in the private sector, but how you can leap from that one truth to the conclusion that virtually nothing the government does can be helpful or effective is a total mystery to me.  I have seen quite a few instances of persons being helped along in both small business start-ups  and personal finances by government advisors when they were not in a position to pay for similar advice from private sources.  I can't recall any circumstances where anyone was harmed by it.  So at least from my own experience, I have to say that I find your predictions are totally off-the-wall.

What we were origionally talking about was Hugo Chavez and the potential for a government takeover of an entire industry. Government services that assist the education of young businessman are not a bad idea .Government strong arms tossing out of all accumlated experince is a bad idea.

[Michael Tee]

<<What we were origionally talking about was Hugo Chavez and the potential for a government takeover of an entire industry. Government services that assist the education of young businessman are not a bad idea .Government strong arms tossing out of all accumlated experince is a bad idea.>>

Well, there is absolutely no requirement that a government take-over must involve the firing of all accumulated experience in the industry.  Quite the contrary - - the takeover would probably take pains to retain the accumulated expertise at the technical and managerial levels. If there would be any replacement at senior managerial levels, it would probably be because the management at that level was complicit in schemes to defraud the host country in various ways, usually related to evasion of taxes.  Whether or not that actually happened in Venezuela, I'm in no position to say (just never followed the issue all that closely) but based on what I know of U.S. business practices in the Third World generally, I'd have to say it's probably more likely than not.