You need to sell yourself a broken bit of goods(that you will see that dawn) every real morning.
We are quite good at local min-max because there is no global one.
Despite your best efforts you will fail, falter and struggle. And sometimes, without doing anything at all you will win a lot.
The best case scenario for people would be to have the failure stages early in life and success later so that one can have the maturity to handle things, save up and retire with new acquired wisdom from failure. The worst would be to have early success then failure all life.
Regardless you just have to keep trying.
So it's like if one of the Kennedys decided to eschew fancy living and live as an ascetic/hermit on a shack in Martha's Vineyard, is he poor?
Also, Mujica might not be interested in wealth but he's VERY power-hungry... And he left a huge mess after his presidency, and didn't address the issues I was hoping he would address (for instance, homeless people quadrupled). Misguided people with lofty goals can sometimes do more harm than good :(
For example, about a year ago: http://thehill.com/homenews/news/331788-obamas-donating-2m-t...
It is clearly a scam where he donates $X then quietly steals a multiple of it.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/12/news/secret-service-mar-a-la...
I too wish I could set my travel plans then charge the government.
Oh and:
https://www.google.com/amp/thehill.com/homenews/administrati...
That right there covers his salary "donations" for 8 years.
[0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018...
Now... I don't believe this is what's happening.
The executive branch does not have the power of appropriation, that duty is handled by congress. The president does submit a budget request to congress, and signs or vetoes each distinct appropriation bill that congress passes.
Increases or decreases of a department's budget can not be unilaterally seen as good or bad. What taxpayers should be most concerned about is the impact that the spending is having not the dollar amount spent. (Plato taught Socrates on a rock) You need to look at trends over time and the specifics of the budget to see if increases or decreases in spending are justified. For example the department of education's budget was 73.3 billion dollars in 2010. In 2014 that figure was 40.8 billion. In 2018 it will be 66.9 billion. At the surface those swings seem quite surprising. You have to dig deeper to understand what really happened instead of taking them at face value.
The Washington post has an article exploring Trump's proposed 2019 budget. You can view that article here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/politics/trump-...
Edit: for anyone who feels this is unjustified, I would love to see links to charitable organizations confirming receipt of donations from the president or the Trump Organization. Direct from the charity, confirmation to reputable news organizations, responses in interviews, anything like that - I don't want things excluded on technicalities.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZkLEmJvDjQ
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr8li6hpC2s
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftt_y__EP7w
[3]: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4714620/trump-donates-4thq-sa...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-boasts-of-his-...
> It was, in large part, a facade. A months-long investigation by The Washington Post has not been able to verify many of Trump’s boasts about his philanthropy.
> Instead, throughout his life in the spotlight, whether as a businessman, television star or presidential candidate, The Post found that Trump had sought credit for charity he had not given — or had claimed other people’s giving as his own.
https://www.npr.org/2017/10/18/558352411/a-trump-golf-course...
> Seventeen organizations listed on the Trump National website said that they could not find any record of a donation from the golf club.
I said “home comes” for way too long.
Politics is a minefield. In general, people are narrow-minded assholes. HN is no different.
“Politics is the art of marshalling hatred” Charlie Munger
Politics is very difficult because people are different and myopic and concerned for themselves, that is true. But that doesn’t mean people are assholes or full of hate, we just have different points of view. We’re physically incapable of not being self-centered, we don’t have a shared consciousness, so that will never change. Politics is the art of navigating many many legitimate and different and opposing points of view. If that turns into meting out hatred, then please please get out of politics.
BTW, here’s one actual study suggesting that people in general prefer optimism in politics. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/08/0...
"Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage." - Ambrose Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary, 1911)
No need to look further than the $50m of political spending in 2017 by FAAG [0] for regulations that would serve their interests like tax reforms, with Google leading the pack with $18m.
[0] https://www.recode.net/2018/1/23/16919424/apple-amazon-faceb...
The “real” purpose served by politicking? There’s no government at all without politics. Do you want no government, no shared values or resources, no services, no infrastructure, no community? What’s your ideal, and why is your ideal good for anyone other than you? (BTW, any answer to that question is political.)
“Politics is a multifaceted word. It has a set of fairly specific meanings that are descriptive and nonjudgmental (such as "the art or science of government" and "political principles"), but often does carry a connotation of dishonest malpractice.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics
I have no doubt you can cherry pick some examples of bad politics. That’s irrelevant and uninteresting. I have no doubt you can find more examples of rich or famous people saying pessimistic things. Also uninteresting. There are plenty of optimistic quotes as well, and plenty of examples of expenditure on things that help people and generally do good. We spend a lot more than $50m on hospitals and roads and libraries and schools, just to name a few.
“We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong.” - Barack Obama
“When you get together in a group, it becomes like a family, with the different personalities and the politics that comes with being in a band. It’s different than bringing something in by yourself.” - Albert Hammond Jr.
“Man is by nature a political animal” - Aristotle
“One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is you end up being governed by your inferiors” - Plato
“To err is human. To blame someone else is politics” - Hubert Humphrey
“I like to see myself as a bridge builder, that is me building bridges between people, between races, between cultures, between politics, trying to find common ground.” - T. D. Jakes
That's a pretty loaded statement that I disagree with because it presupposes that man has only being organizing his affairs for centuries when we both know that mankind has existed for thousands of years.
Anyway, there's a real risk of talking past each other, so I'll be upfront by saying that government can be totally independent of politics -- politics is merely a means to an end and that end is governance.
How did mankind manage its affairs prior to politicking and modern-day electoral contests (democracy)?
Monarchies [0]. What I believe you are arguing for via politicking is representative leadership [1], which only became a thing in the 17th century.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_history_of_the_world
I'm not sure what assumptions you're making here. Governance and politics have both existed for many many millennia, roughly as long as language has existed I'd wager.
> I'll be upfront by saying that government can be totally independent of politics
I disagree completely. The definition of the word politics is activities associated with governance. That was my point above. You're choosing to focus on a narrow and negative interpretation, and not the primary meaning of the word.
politics:noun
the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area
the activities of governments concerning the political relations between countries.
the academic study of government and the state.
https://www.google.com/search?q=politics
> How did mankind manage its affairs prior to politicking?
There is no such thing, and there never was. Politicking is the word for persuading others to join together to achieve things not possible as individuals.
I acknowledge that politicking is sometimes also used to mean grift and power grabbing and other things. But using it that way is a choice, and it doesn't represent all possible politics. In my opinion, it also doesn't represent anything close to a majority of politics either. Most politics that occur are necessary and benign or good, and only a minority are the type you're worried about.