Obama names tech execs to transition team | Hacker News Reader

Obama names tech execs to transition team

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43 pointsksvs30 comments

I'm very, very optimistic about signs like this. Effective use of Internet-based communication, organization, and collaboration tools appears to be something that, generally speaking, comes naturally to younger generations and doesn't come at all to older generations. Appointing a few key people who get it to powerful positions in government could go a very long way toward delivering, in government, some of the same productivity improvements and transparency that we've come to appreciate in tech companies.

I'm a little fearful of efficiency in government. I believe that, in most areas, government can never be as efficient as a free market. Making the government closer to a free-market efficiency just makes it harder to get to a fully-free market and makes it a lot easier for the government to grow in other areas.

Rothbard went into a little more detail on this in a lengthy criticism of Friedman: http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard43.html

How do you get efficient outcomes in monopolistic markets without government involvement? Where substantively do you feel more efficient government is problematic?

Most monopolies are caused by government, though. Mostly through barriers to entry for competition..

Was Microsoft caused by government? I thought it was because Gates convinced businessmen that using his solution and standardizing it would be the most efficient for the workplace. And it took the government stepping in to decentralize things.

Microsoft's monopoly in all areas is deteriorating due to the free market. For example, the browser market is now more of an oligopoly. Microsoft only maintains a majority market share because Firefox forced it to really put some work into IE 7.

Monopolies do exist in free markets, but they tend to be unstable and relatively short-lived. Things like AT&T's 100-year monopoly definitely require some government intervention.

The question is, would Microsoft have broken up had it not been for Bill Gates being hauled in front of a federal commission and forced to break Microsoft into smaller divisions? Because the free market didn't split Microsoft, the federal government did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft#Governme...

But, government isn't going anywhere. Wouldn't you rather have an efficient government over a non-efficient government given that Free Markets don't eliminate the need for government? As the latest crisis has taught us Free Markets can't solve everything, and sometimes the only answer is government intervention. Like it or not the free markets couldn't correct their mistakes. They tried before requesting government intervention. The only answer is to find the balance between free markets and government. Right now we're out of whack.

The current crisis reminded us that it's still a bad idea for the government to distort prices on a so massive scale (through fake interest rates), because truth has to eventually emerge through the price system anyway, and corrections have to happen.

Failure can happen in the free market (that's how progress is made, through trial and error). But when governments decide that failure should never happen ("too big to fail", etc.) they make the free market itself fail, which is much bigger problem.

Financial companies take calculated risks for themselves to make profits. But they don't have to take into account the effect of any losses they may cause in the economy as a whole (or more precisely, they only have to consider their share of them). How do you propose to get out of this collective action problem without some form of government regulation?

There is this moral hazard precisely because the government ends up bailing out the irresponsible (following the "too big to fail" mantra).

Instead, just let the financial companies (in fact, all companies, including GM) take full responsibility for what they do.

Compare the government-efficiency fueled prosperity of Singapore or Malaysia to the more free market style economies of Vietnam, Phillipines or Indonesia.

You mentioned Philippines. I live here and indeed things are getting better for some people. Cebu - the island where I live is booming with IT stuff and Call Centers. And this is no thanks to the National Government. I can only speak for myself, but i think mostly this is done by the local government. So thanks to them. And by the way, if you are thinking of outsourcing, outsource here in Cebu. People get paid less here compared to Manila/Makati and they are just as talented. So you get more for your money :P

For businesses, the market here is small. The island is small. So do your business in Singapore, Japan, US, etc. and let the people here do the work (with good pay of course heh) -- it's like the internet was made for Cebu

Just think, had McCain won, we might have ended up with Carly Fiorina...

Surely would have - shudder

I'm genuinely curious to see how the Obama administration will use the web. If his campaign is any indication, the whitehouse tech game will no doubt be cutting edge.

Cool that someone from Launchbox is involved. Seems like Google.org hasn't done much yet given all the resources they have.

change.gov is up, if not exactly pretty :-)

(and i'm curious to see what the Obama administration will do with whitehouse.gov.)

i doubt he had any say in that. They probably decided on a "site to help open up the government" and then some IT guys were told to make it happen.

According to the meta-data in the source of change.gov, this is the guy that wrote it:

http://www.smartcard.gov/thurston_bio.cfm

According to the source of the Change.gov page, it was generated using Microsoft Word.

Granted, it's just a placeholder for the site, but still. I sure hope that isn't a sign of things to come.

I think they're using it as a metaphor:

Current administration = Word-generated page

New administration = Web 2.0

Getting rid of Ted Stevens for good is the first thing that should happen.

Ummm, how do you propose that the executive branch should "get rid of" a senator?

Guantanamo seems a pretty popular option these days...

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