Keeping Government Out of Your Business
cacm.acm.org
cacm.acm.org
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the country's Shin Bet domestic spy agency, usually tasked with monitoring Palestinian and Israeli extremists, to launch the cellphone surveillance. It locates people who could have the virus and messages them.
"Meanwhile, late Thursday Israel's Supreme Court stopped the police from using the data to enforce quarantines, which it had started doing. The court also said it could scrap the program unless it goes through parliament or if the country is put on a total lockdown."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/18/tech/whatsapp-coronavirus-mis...
We need to change the conversation.
That action alone should open the government up to civil tort liability. Like, if the government imprisoned me unjustly they would have to pay me when I sue them. The same should apply here. Without government intervention, the market would have still been going on strong. If the government orders an indefinite shut down, a huge violation of American's civil rights (but one that is warranted in my opinion), then they need to properly reimburse for that drastic change in civil rights.
If the government did not want to pay, they should have let the market decline due to people dying and then refuse to bail out corporations, because that would have been a problem of the market's own making. Now it is a problem of the government's making, and they have to compensate, period.
Life is a more important right than liberty, but loss of any right must be compensated appropriately. The same is true for property. The government currently seeks to co-opt private property for its use fighting the pandemic. I think it is right to do so. However, any co-opting of private property (i.e., eminent domain powers) must be met with an appropriate compensation, as the constitution requires.
Otherwise, you basically are calling for the legalization of civil asset forfeiture (which, if I'll remind you, the Supreme Court declared illegal).
I don't think efforts to deal with a pandemic is "legalization of civil asset forfeiture" and it feels like your understanding of the law is swerving all over the road here.
That is not at all what I said. I said that stopping the economy without compensation to deal with a pandemic is akin to civil asset forfeiture. This has nothing to do with law, but with ethics. You take something away, you have to pay it back.
That seems like double dipping / transferring responsibility of all the problems of the world onto the government regardless if they created them or not.
Yes, like how I expect the government to do things like conduct high speed chases of dangerous criminals, but if their police car hits me, I expect reimbursement.
> That seems like double dipping / transferring responsibility of all the problems of the world onto the government regardless if they created them or not.
The Government's checkbook ultimately comes from people's taxes, and yes, I expect people to be willing to float the cost of this economic shutdown. After all, the government's actions are undoubtedly keeping you safe.
Taxes are a way of reallocating the cost. As someone making income during the shutdown, my taxes will be higher than someone who is not (even if they get a bailout). Thus I will help pay for them. This is good.
Not every business is equally affected. Those that continue to remain active are able to do so because the government has taken massive steps to prevent a lot of people from dying. These businesses are unfairly benefiting from the current economic climate, while some businesses are being forced to suffer. The costs of this economic shutdown ought to be socialized, since the benefit of the shutdown is for society.
This kind of economic action is unprecedented. I do not expect government compensation for natural disasters in general, because those are not the government's fault. I especially do not expect government compensation when people or businesses make mistakes. For example, in 2008, banks wrote bad loans, and irresponsible consumers took them on. There should have been no bailout at all. None of what happened was really the government's fault. However, if we did that, I don't see how anyone can escape responsibility here.
Without that it is just "something bad happened to me someone should pay".
Do we ignore that the pandemic itself seems to call for the government to do a thing? The pandemic sure isn't government action.
it's a bit more specific than "something bad happened to me someone should pay". restaurants are going under as a direct result of government action. if they failed because people were too scared to go out to dinner, that would be a different story. can you not accept that it's possible for the government to do a good thing, but also owe compensation to people who are disproportionately harmed by that thing?
Just the basics of liability would seem to have to include being "liable". Hard to be liable for a pandemic.
I don't know what the right answer is here but it's an interesting discussion.
We don't want people who make good faith efforts to protect / help people sued... because the end result was not entirely positive.
Dude is in a car accident and his car is on fire. I pull him out but his arm breaks?
I didn't cause the accident, neither did he, I didn't have to pull him out of that burning car.... but it probabbly makes sense that I'm not legally liable because we want people to help.
Same goes for this sort of ultra expanded view of government liability.
If they're not protected, the result is without question inaction. Voters don't want that, nobody really does.
The concept is just general fairness / incentivizing good acts and isn't hard to understand within the concept of anyone acting, not just individuals.
The idea that someone / anyone must pay regardless is just ignoring the actual circumstances. That makes no sense.
Who do you think pays the government's legal fees and damages in such case? The taxpayer does.
Sure. That doesn't mean the government doesn't owe everyone money. Some individuals have more income than others. A progressive tax system ensures that they will end up paying more for it than I will.
I will also point out that I said the government owes everyone for lost income. Not all companies or individuals experienced income loss. I for example can work from home, so I only should be paid for my loss of liberty. Others cannot work at all right now (like airlines and their employees) so they (both companies and individuals) ought to be paid more in addition to their compensation for loss of liberty.
The government is protecting people from companies that would force them to go to work and harm their help. The government is defending their health and liberty to say "no" to a boss demanding them to come in.
I don't agree with those people, but it seems cruel to force someone who thinks this is nothing to not go to work and not earn their money and then not give them anything.
it's not totally different from the situation where the government wants to build a train track through where your house currently sits. the train line will connect two important cities and allow for lots of people to commute with less emissions. it's a great thing, but the government is still obligated to pay you for the house it's about to bulldoze.
It's not at all similar to eminent domain.
A better parallel would be the military 'draft'.
Does the US government pay soldiers enough to truly consider the violence they will face? What would the 'going market rate' be for soldiers in such a situation?
And yet somehow people do it for relatively low pay?
I wonder why?
Hmmm ... maybe because there's something more than 'private property' at stake?
This is not a situation wherein government action to ostensibly benefit the many, causes minor economic injury to a few or even one.
This is a situation wherein the entire game is up for grabs, there are lives at stake, and everyone is 'all in'.
The market is real people’s lives. Every good traded is done so in a market. Your mental model of a market seems to be the stock market, which makes it easier for you to pretend that when markets stop, there are no real consequences for non-shareholders.
No not at all. I would highly encourage you to actually read my comment. I said:
> If the government orders an indefinite shut down, a huge violation of American's civil rights (but one that is warranted in my opinion), then they need to properly reimburse for that drastic change in civil rights.
In this sentence 'but one that is warranted in my opinion' indicates that I think the government's actions to shut down the economy are warranted.
However, I think we must be reimbursed for the government-ordered loss of rights.
Like, if the government wants to seize a house to build a road (eminent domain), I think the government can act correctly to do that, but they must reimburse the home owner the full cost of the house on the market.
This means that the government in this case needs to reimburse everyone for the full cost of what their time would have garnered them on the market during the shutdown.
The World Wars actually ended with a lot of countries indebted to one another.
Your employer-employee relationship does not count, because you are not being forced to work for your employer. They are paying you whatever wage could be agreed on.
That is to say, I am against reparations because I am against collective guilt for something that only some individuals in that collective are responsible for. I am certainly not opposed to collective restitution though, and do think that the descendants of former slaves ought to be compensated.
So, if the government wanted to open up civil lawsuits so that African American descendants of slaves (and slaves from other ethnic groups) could sue their former 'master's' or their former 'master's' children or descendants for wealth inherited, and made a process by which such investigations could be carried out in a reasonable and fair manner, then yes, that would be great.
That being said, libertarianism does quite often support reparations. Not all libertarians of course, but there are lots of libertarians that do, and justify it based on the fact that a person denied liberty deserves restitution, including their descendants.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/return-of-stolen-property-a-li...
Walter Block, a prominent Austrian economics libertarian also makes the case for some kind of reparations:
At least no libertarian that I know support reparations. They believe their position of weakness led them to be taken advantage of so they kind of "deserved" it. Or their labor were put to better use.
My civil torts would not be based on what ifs (like whether they could have had my job or school place), but on the best approximated wages owed to their ancestors that they ought to have inherited. The money would be paid out via those assets inherited by descendants of slave owners. Many southern plantations are still owned by slaver families and they generate revenue. This revenue is rightly due to the slaves descendants.
I dont have any responsibility for slavery in this country because my family wasn't around at the time and i dont have any inheritance.
How do you decide how much to give a business? I don't think it's fair to just give specific industries money. Maybe the company you work for got hurt too but not as bad. Don't you they deserve money? You need to distribute the money to every business in a fair way, but it's pretty much impossible to determine what's fair. You can't just give every "business" the same amount of money and have it be "fair" for several reasons.
Ultimately, at the end of the day it's the citizens who need the money. The easiest way to fairly divide money among people is to divide it evenly. It doesn't matter if they are rich or not. I say give whatever money you were going to give to businesses and give it to the people instead. Don't rely on trickle down.
if you were really interested, it seems like it wouldn't be too hard to come up with a reasonable figure. take average revenue n weeks before the shutdown, then subtract average revenue during the crisis. pay out in proportion to calculated losses, conditional on backpaying employees their average weekly pay. real productivity is down by a lot, so no one is going to be made completely whole, but we could share the burden a lot better than we are now.
as an aside, just giving everyone a flat sum would be the best outcome for me personally. I'm still getting paid and my company is doing fine. I'm arguing against my own interests here, which I don't do often.
Well yeah, citizens also own American companies, so they need the money lost due to their companies (which is their property) not operating. They should be compensated for the loss of enjoyment of their personal property.
> The easiest way to fairly divide money among people is to divide it evenly.
Sure, but that's not fair at all.
> It doesn't matter if they are rich or not.
Well, yeah their wealth doesn't matter, but their income does. Someone making more money and now not making any money due to government intervention is actually owed more than the guy making less money.
> I say give whatever money you were going to give to businesses and give it to the people instead. Don't rely on trickle down.
No, you need to give money to both. People own businesses. If their business is not making money, then that is their money that the government must compensate. Even the largest businesses are owned by people. If some company had a dividend scheduled and is now not doing that due to losses incurred by government activity, the government must pay it.
Alright: let's have the government compensate your for your loss of rights during this pandemic by paying you 10% of your pandemic-period income. Let's have it pay for that by assessing a special one-time tax of 10% of your pandemic-period income.
The government ain't some magic other, it's us, and your compensation has to come from somewhere. The virus isn't going to pay. This is a country-wide disaster, and there's no getting around the fact that all of us are going to have to pay for it, one way or another.
This is not true. I put myself in self-isolation over a week before the State mandate came out. Many of us are doing this for ourselves, based on collective intelligence and agreement.
People like you are not what is causing restaurants to shut down or airlines to refund their tickets (causing the cash pinch they're in). That was all threat of government crackdown.
In a fair world, where everyone made good on their agreements, those consumers that bought non-refundable tickets wouldn't get their money back, but they did.
I don't think airlines need to have all their income replaced, just that which is directly attributable to governmental intervention. If they're still in the red after that, the money should go to their creditors and then their investors. That is what we all agreed to.
I was under the impression that the US Gov't can decide whether or not it can be sued by a plaintiff. If that is the case I have a sneaking suspicion that the Government would decline to continue with any case against itself regarding this issue.
Do you think it would be any different?
Yes, the US government has inherited the concept of sovereign immunity from UK common law. That means the US can only be sued with its consent. However, Congress (which represents the people) has waived its own sovereign immunity in most cases.
Thus, the people of the United States can sue the United States since they have (via Congress) given their own consent to sue themselves.
As an aside, this used to be a site of entrepreneurs and hackers. Sadly, now it is filled with government cronies and apologists of bad behavior. It's shameful.
Strangely enough, these companies were totally fine before the government shut them down, despite tons of cheap debt. How is it that none of them asked to be bailed out in February? Maybe the forced shutdown have something to do with their problems after all?
When you buy a ticket, that money is used to buy gas, pay wages, pay debt, etc. That money is not typically refundable, unless you pay a higher ticket price as an insurance premium against the risk you need a refund. Can you ask an employee for wages back, a gas supplier for a return, or a creditor for a stop payment? As a courtesy, the airlines refunded all tickets (which is a lot of money). Now they don't have a lot of cash. That is not fair, at all.
A lot of companies are funded with cheap debt and are not at all affected by the shutdown because their industry is unaffected by the government's meddling. In fact, they're making a lot of money right now.
The vast majority of failing businesses right now had no special access to government programs.
In fact, the larger organizations will probably do just fine, and they were far more likely to lever previous bailouts and cheap financing.
The people getting nailed right now are individual contractors, individual employees, small business owners.
And yes, it's totally unfair that Boeing will probably get a big fat government bailout.
If the government did not coordinate action, not only would 20% of need hospitalization and wouldn't get it (so we'd be dying in the streets), 'the economy' would fall apart quite quickly on its own.
The government's actions are quite literally saving the economy in the long run.
Yes, we need be wary of unnecessary intervention etc. but I'm just shocked to read this kind of stuff.
The government is using the legit powers it has, mostly for what it's supposed to do right now.
If anything, there could be a considerably more direct intervention in healthcare.
You are shocked that I think people ought to be compensated for the income lost due to government order?
I am shocked that you think it is okay for the government to take people's property and liberty without even thinking of compensation, as they are mandated to do by law.
What property are you referring to?
What about the money they took from me to fund the Iraq War?
And you think the government should compensate when they take away liberty? Do you have any idea what the NSA has done since 9/11? I never voted to have my 4th amendment rights taken away and I've never been compensated.
Earlier you said
> I mean, the government shut down the economy, not the virus.
That seems to be the entire basis of your argument.
First of all, the government didn't "shut down the economy". They responded to a pandemic. What other action could they have taken? Pretty much any action will have an effect on the economy. So what? This isn't new.
What about when a hurricane is coming or something else that causes forced evacuations? Or when people aren't allowed back to their homes immediately after? They could have saved their property if the government didn't intervene, right? Does the government owe them money?
Companies should be responsible like citizens are expected to be. They shouldn't just always assume the happy path and then cry when a disaster happens because they weren't prepared. Always be prepared. You're profits may not accelerate as fast but that's not my problem. Businesses being dependent on loans being the norm has to stop. That's why our economy is so fragile.
There's an existential threat to the nation (and globe), which has the potential to wipe out 5% of the population within weeks. (Assuming overwhelmed medical facilities, which will 100% happen without intervention, the death rate climbs to about 4-5% as we see in Italy). Literally millions of Americans dying in their homes, in the streets - all avoidable. 15% of Americans suffering ongoing health issues.
This 'liberty ideology' is not only irrational because said 'economic property' will be destroyed anyhow unless the government does act assertively, but it's also completely missing the point, but we're also talking about human lives and existential calamity.
Of course 'the goddam gubermint' is not some externalized entity - it's you. So if 'gubermint' needs to pay you for your material grievances, guess where they'll get the money?
From you.
So how about the government follow your advice: they pay us each $10 000 for our material property damage, but first, they tax us each $10 000 in order to be able to pay for said damages. See how that works?
Besides, the real point of the stimulus is to give people cash needed now. This is a liquidity problem not a fundamental problem with the economy. Taxing people in the future to pay it back is not only a good thing, I think its the right thing. And the government should make a pretty decent return on it too This is not difficult to understand.
in general, measuring the cost of government decisions seems good.
But here, you seem to be suggesting that a) if the government acts, it should pay the income you'd had if you had kept working (and assuming corona hadn't stopped you anyway) or b) if it doesn't act, I guess you'd like to claim damages for that family member that got killed by corona because the goverent allowed the epidemic to get out of control?
No. The government has no real control over the epidemic.
In some ways, this is the trolley problem. There is a trolley (COVID-19) heading towards a group of people (the general population), and the government can pull a lever to switch the track to a smaller group of persons (the industries impacted by COVID). Make no mistake about it, some people will die if the government simply ordered people to stay home (i.e., pulls the lever). Some will die due to suicide because of mental illness or because they lost their job. Some will die because they don't have the social support they're used to. Either way, there will certainly be deaths caused if the government did nothing else and just pulled the lever (i.e., ordered people to stay home and business to shut down)
Nevertheless, the government has currently chosen to pull the lever to redirect the trolley towards this group of people. Because it has done so, it now owes those people restitution to mitigate the impacts of the government's decision. This is what a stimulus bill is.
If the government did nothing, it wouldn't owe anyone anything. This is not such a crazy belief. Many major moral philosophies claim that by pulling the lever, you gain responsibility for the outcome, whereas by doing nothing, you are not responsible.
That sounds great in theory. In practice, you'd have everyone who could work from home continuing to do so. And everyone who could not, forced to come to work, get sick and possibly die, under pain of losing their job (and therefore, their healthcare).