Entries Tagged 'Government' ↓

Taijitu - diagram of ultimate power

In the last example of Fourfold Problem-Solving we looked at How Buyout Funds Work as an industry on the microeconomics level. Today we’re going to look at national and global examples on the the macroeconomic level.

A national example of fourfold thinking

Macroeconomics is simply the “big picture” economics. At this point in time that usually means on the national or international level. Microeconomics, on the other hand, is anything below the national level, e.g., industry, households, regional and local governments.

The national level is where Americans can clearly see the downside of binary either/or thinking. We think we have two national political parties in this country; Republican and Democratic. The reality is that we have four parties:

conservatives          ultraconservatives

liberals                   progressives

Our ultraconservatives have pulled conservatism one way; now our progressives are pulling liberalism back towards its former place, and even beyond that into more progressive territory. Meanwhile, we have a liberal Democrat President who is trying to moderate the damage of that split, and traditionally conservative Republicans appear to be becoming more and more of a minority in Congress.

A global example of fourfold thinking Continue reading →

Last week, the Commission on Wartime Contracting released a report to Congress about military contractors. The report, cited by California senator, Dianne Feinstein, in a hearing about it, alleges military contractors cost the taxpayers of this country 30 to 60 billion dollars. As mentioned in the Commission’s four bullet points in its 8-page abstract of the report, “CWC-NR-49,” that money disappeared through waste and fraud:

• Pegs waste, fraud in Iraq, Afghanistan at >$30 billion
• Sees threat of more waste in unsustainable projects
• Faults both government officials and contractors
• Offers 15 recommendations for contracting reform

Contractors were ostensibly hired because the US military was not ready to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that President George W. Bush led us into. About half of the “military” forces fighting for the Americans  in those wars have been foreign mercenaries. Talk about outsourcing American jobs! With taxpayer funding, no less!

While the  IRS is busy going after domestic employers who evade their tax responsibilities by hiring independent contractors in place of employees, no government agency appeared to be going after our federal and state governments for doing exactly the same thing! In the name of “national security” for a war based on a lie, the federal government was allowed, often without even requiring competitive bidding,  to hire fake “employees”, and turned its head while they defrauded taxpayers out of billions of dollars. And it won’t stop. Senator Feinstein complained that a 2009 agreement with the Defense Department to cut the number of independent contractors used by 5% a year wasn’t being honored.

This is not just a federal government problem. State governments also have been hiring contractors to do the same jobs that state employees do, but with more expensive results for those of us who rely on our local governments to protect American citizens. And there are those in power in some our states who would like to use our taxpayer monies to hire nothing but private contractors! Before going along with that idea, take a look at the abstract of the Commission’s report from August 31, 2011 and the following article I posted about independent contractors in government a little over two years ago on Brucenomics. Continue reading →

Several years ago I cam across a book by a Harvard Medical School psychologist, Martha Stout, called The Sociopath Next Door. This book really opened my eyes.

I’ve been fascinated by psychopaths (now called “sociopaths”) ever since I met one of them when I was in my twenties. He was the kind you read about and see in the movies.

He was a short, balding guy around thirty who owned a tobacco-store near the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He lured lonely students into his back room, drugged them, and then dumped chests full of their chopped-up bodies into the Schuylkill River. Continue reading →