I don’t agree with this at all. The fed is incompetent, sure, but that’s by virtue of decades of making sure our government fails
So you have a failed example in private sector and you apply it to the Fed in order to say the Fed needs to hire from the private sector?
Well in that example the modeler was taking the academic approach, she had great math but no practical experience in the business segment she was modeling
The main idea was that she needed to take a bunch of variables that affect sales and make the model "fit" or explain how those variables affected sales. You have to assign weights of the effects to different variables as some affect sales more than others: TV spend by zip Radio spend by zip Billboards by zip Newspaper / magazines / etc...by zip Weather by zip (rain and snow depress in-store sales) Discount and promotion from the manufacturer Geographical needs (e.g., snow tires sell in Northeast and midwest, but not southwest) New store ramp (new stores aren't running to full potential until 2 years in usually Economic indicators, we used consumer sentiment, unemployment, and two others I can't remember at the moment The real list is much longer Her job was to take 2 years of backwards looking sales data and the variables above, dump it into a model and assign weights to each variable such that it predicts sales exactly as what actually happened in the real world. It's very complex. I'm not smart enough to actually do that, it takes a special brain to be able to process that even with the help of software because it's such a dynamic system. You can make the model "fit" for any static data set. You could set a negative coefficient for TV, but offset it with a 50x overweight radio coefficient to get to the "correct" sales number. The problem is when you apply that model to a new, 3rd year of marketing and sales data it's going to spit out a result that doesn't make sense. People like that (and usually inexperienced people, but sometimes experts as well) often can get lost in math sauce and be so deep in the detail that they don't step away and interrogate whether those assumptions actually make sense in the real world. When I told her, she of course was hurr durr that makes no sense but she was focused on the elegance of the math and making the model "fit." Hope that helps - it's meant to be illustrative and how both academic and practical experience can sometimes work together to create the correct result.
Answer above - real answers to problems are often alot messier and complex than what snark can deliver
Agree with that but federal issues are different than private sector issues, and again, private sector experience is generally more detrimental. Especially because private sector experience, specifically in the instance you provided, is frequently useless. Unless you wanna make some pretty slides
I mean generally agree with that and let's take down the temperature not trying to make this a thing. Private sector experience is going to be pretty useless for an EPA bureaucrat or a State Department diplomat. But the Fed is a bit unique IMO in that it's actions directly affect the private sector and the economy writ large. Someone who has practical experience in the thing they're regulating would bring an additive perspective to the necessary academic and technical training.
I’m not certain that the Fed is truly unique but I am certain that your example of private sector superiority didn’t make any sense
Given the entrenched skepticism and absence of curiosity, I suspect the lack of understanding is more intentional than anything else
Certainly. Or I have significant experience with private sector thinkers trying to correct the government
Would you concede the private sector does anything well or do you generally view them as an antagonist in all situations? Or something else?
I've never been convinced there was anything extraordinary about the private sector. It's capitalist propaganda
Is there anything that you do think is extraordinary? Like is anything great or are most things are generally unimpressive relative to the marketing around them? Maybe physics, astronomy, etc...idk
Not a gotcha question, I just don't understand your perspective. You don't have to answer if you don't want
You can take something like Medicare or the VA that routinely rank at the top of patient satisfaction surveys as examples
would you concede there is nothing the private sector does well without the help of the public sector? a strong, functioning public sector is needed in all markets where private sector thrives. The private needs the help/exploitation of the public, than the inverse.
The reasoning has never made sense for one. Why is the private sector capable of things the public is not? You're getting sold nonsense
If I answer in good faith, will you agree to? Excellent private sectors come from the rule of law, commerce can't happen without confidence that laws will be respected, transactions honored, as well as infrastructure and innovations that receive public funding. So I 100% agree with you, well functioning public sector is necessary for a good private sector. Only caveat I would add is that it's necessary, but not sufficient. There's some optimal balance between government activism and letting the private sector do it's thing. There are plenty of "strong" govts around the world with private sectors that aren't the equal of the US. Govt absolutely plays a big role, but can also be a hindrance. Will you concede that centrally planned economies and govt controlled industries have a spotty track record throughout history? If you see the private sector as inherently exploitative and govt and unimpeachable then we're probably not going to get to a compromise tbh
He just gave an anecdote where the private sector had someone who was good at math work with someone who is good at business on a project. Checkmate, lib.
what is a spotty track record and how does it compare to the institutionalized theft that is the market economy you should read the people’s republic of Walmart to see how private firms use soviet ideas like satisficing equations for resource distribution to “centrally plan” global activity
Are you suggesting that Sam Walton, a redneck from Arkansas, plagiarized the Soviets on his way to building the largest retailer on Earth?
Are you new here? How is any of what I said suggesting the government is unimpeachable, whatever that means in this context? You’re reproducing shitty propaganda from the 1970s.
no, I’m saying that the logic inside corporations is inherently cooperative. Competitive firms have failed miserably (eg Sears). They use algorithms to make good enough decisions about resource redistribution to support their goal, a move that mimics the goal of old centrally planned economies.
I just reject your framing entirely. It's like a teen discovered Marx for the first time. We are fundamentally not on the same page, so much so that it makes dialogue near impossible
Because you can't accept basic facts that contradict your ideology. Maybe one day you'll become aware of it
Ok - I'm with you. Cooperation takes place in most successful systems, from a family unit all the way up to nation-states. How do you suppose that centrally planned economies have "dibs" on that idea? Like I make resource allocation decisions every day within my small little company
because it flies in the face of the Objectivist nonsense most people take for granted about the market economy due to obviously extremely effective propaganda: individuality is the most important feature; competition and selfishness yield optimal outcomes and cooperation and altruism suboptimal ones; any sort of planning is a distortion of market forces; and so on you acknowledging it while defending the concept of private sector efficiency with all those assumptions is exactly my point.
"This thing is inherently exploitative" and "Nothing is extraordinary about the private sector" do not resemble facts in any sense of the word. HTH
the best part is that I personally and am sure many others have walked through the labor theory of value and the exploitation built into market production on this very website before
Just name a country without a strong public sector, that has a thriving private sector. There's a reason why Europe and America have run shit = because they have had strong stable beliefs in the public sector. Their economic blips have been due to forces seeking to destroy or reduce the State.