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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

This is an impressive rant and makes sense if you ignore the fact that more and more money is being sucked up by the government that seems to be providing less and less in return.

I mean San Francisco has a $1.1B budget for homelessness. That's a contribution of almost $1,300 for every man, woman and child resident of SF. And yet the problem is worse, not better.

Maybe it's not a money problem but the approach that's the issue.

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The mistake you are making is that you think I consider our current administration and democratic leaders remotely competent or aligning with my values.

They do not. I agree they are useless on purpose. That is my point.

I gotta say the situation in politics in the US is so rancorous that no person with two brain cells to rub together would go into it unless they’re a pig that likes to wrestle in shit; who wants to go into that mess? Even Bernie gave into the identity politics out of necessity.

Our best and brightest are making money to buy fallout shelters in NZ or wherever.

Then the real question is whether you believe there is any hope or even precedent of efficient government administration and spending. I personally believe not and that government, especially on a broad federal level, will inherently tend to be inefficient, bureaucratic, and corrupt. If so, wouldn't a swing right towards small government be ideal?

Small government. So you are in favor of defunding the military?

Small doesn't mean non-existent. One of the few things even the most extreme anarcho-capitalists believe the government should do is protect it's people from a hostile takeover on behalf of a non-anarcho-capitalist nation.

I think that most anarcho-capitalists don't believe in a government or nation.

Anarcho-capitalists just want archipelagos of privately-owned governments.

Sure they do. They just call countries "collectives."

Well, I don't think any sane country will try to invade somewhere where the citizens have recreational nukes.

Nukes don't defend a country without a huge human force supporting and maintaining them.

In addition to that, you need to constantly evolve your delivery vehicles to overcome newly developed defense capabilities.

In even the most bare-bones defense scenario, the needed investment is fairly large, and it depends on how large of an investment adversaries make.

It is not possible to remake the USA given its legal structure and most importantly its culture. Federation in the USA is kind of fucked, but how do you fix it?

In reality, anyway, the social, economic and political system works pretty well for business and capital owners. Specially those at the very top. Governments are corrupt because the system is corrupt. The rules of society have been written, and this dates back to the foundation of the country, to benefit elites.

In order to change the rules major dissent is needed, and that will only come in a situation of complete collapse of the political system. I think it will happen, and I actually think things are getting really heated up... but it's not gonna be pretty.

It will be interesting to see what kind of economic, political and social models could be followed. But really, elites will never want to risk their current positions.

> That's a contribution of almost $1,300 for every man, woman and child resident of SF

If you are a property owner, then distributing the externalities and barbaric social harm of the insane NIMBYism and zoning laws that artificially protect your property's valuation to the majority renting population makes sense. A few thousand a year is nothing compared to real estate.

And obviously, that amount of money is easily enough to just give the unhoused the housing they need, if it weren't impossible to build affordable housing in the first place.

You’re wrong about San Francisco having a $1.1B budget for homelessness.

In fy2021-2022 the amount is $670M … over two years.

SF spends 1/4 of the amount you accuse it of.

Furthermore, it’s well known that other counties near and far send their homeless people here. So as a SF tax payer… I think you owe me many thanks for taking care of your homeless people.

https://hsh.sfgov.org/about/budget/

> The FY21-23 HSH budget leverages $1.2 billion over the next two years in federal, state, and local resources (including Prop C funds). In addition to HSH’s existing commitments

…wait, im seeing in here that they plan to add 4,000 new homes to addresss homelessness. Given the real estate pricing of SF it makes sense it would be expensive as fuck. Why are folks mad at SF govt? They should be mad at landowners for price gouging on rent.

SF rent isn't gouged: SF land prices are gouged by NIMBYs. For the price rent is SF should look like Manhattan. Instead it's more like Boise.

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