TI-Burr-Brown parts shartage?

[Joerg]

But the statists seem unable to grasp the fact that:

A: Individual donation can carry the load, by people who voluntarily give
what they can to help out those in need
B: Getting the government into the loop, taking your money away, filtering
half or more off into their pockets, and giving handouts to people who
don't really desrve it

Are two different things, and staying the "B" course has always resulted
in disaster, and why should we prove that fact yet again?

That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it?

 

[Joerg]

On 4 Apr 2007 16:03:24 -0700, [email protected] wrote:

On Apr 4, 8:15 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-
Site.com> wrote:
[snip]


Eeyore and Slowman have no clue. Our private charities are far more
efficient that ANY government entity.

I wonder how Jim measures the efficiency of a private charity? Or for
that matter how he defines it?

Benefit/cost ratio.

Which would only work if you could value benefits and costs in the
same units - presumably dollars. The effectiveness of a charity
depends not only on the quantity of goods they transfer to the
recipients, but also on the timing of the transfers, and the
proportion of the appropriate recipients that they reach. Since the
costs and benefits can't be expressed in the same units, you can only
talk about effectiveness, not efficiency.

That's exactly where charity excels. They see a need very quickly and
react pretty much immediately. I could give you tons of examples from
here but that could be considered boasting. And on some occasions I
couldn't because it breaks confidentiality.

I'm not a vociferous critic of the U.S. - which Jim would understand
if he wasn't such an ill-educated redneck - and his opinions on other
people's ignorance are totally vitiated by his own.




The one defined by world outside the cage in which Jim is confined by
his ignorance and prejudice. Jim is a citizen of a gated community in
Phoenix, Arizona - I'm a citizen of the world.




Not so much a social security system as pension scheme set up by the
rich to look after the rich. In civilised countries, social security
schemes are safety nets for everybody.




Are they lying?

If they talk about countries like the US, possibly. Here, you can easily
go to a food closet. Typically run by county organizations and churches.
There you can usually get more food than you can possibly consume. How
do I know? Our church runs one. Much of that comes from members of the
congregation who have large orchards. Then we have the "senior gleaners"
who pick fruit at other properties that would otherwise go to waste
because the owners aren't interested in it. Let me tell you, that is top
notch gourmet stuff. The supermarkets can't even touch that level of
quality.

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Apr 5, 11:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:
[snip]

I'm not a vociferous critic of the U.S. - which Jim would understand
if he wasn't such an ill-educated redneck - and his opinions on other
people's ignorance are totally vitiated by his own.

What cage do you live in, Slowman?

The one defined by world outside the cage in which Jim is confined by
his ignorance and prejudice. Jim is a citizen of a gated community in
Phoenix, Arizona - I'm a citizen of the world.

I don't live in a gated community. I live in an ordinary middle-class
neighborhood that includes Black and Pakistani and Indian (from New
Delhi) next-door neighbors.

[snip]

Slowman is just jealous... when he was born and fell out of the
horse's ass, she kicked him in the head ;-)

Slowman hasn't been gainfully employed for more than a few months at a
time... employers quickly note his incompetence.

So he lives in high unemployment areas of the world where he won't
stand out and be noticed.

(Our current unemployment numbers came out today... 4.4% ;-)

...Jim Thompson

 

[Joerg]

I'm not boasting, I'm preaching. Most of us have enough income to buy
cars and beer and toys. All of us should set aside a bit to help
people who are truly suffering from hunger and disease. Medical and
food aid alleviates short-term suffering; microlending and education
are long-term. Both deserve our support.

Yes. Definitely. Those who can't do so financially can always roll up
the sleeves and do it. An example is Habitat for Humanity. Heck, you
don't even need the skills, they'll teach you. Did a similar thing but
organized by our church. A complete re-roof. Besides the happiness that
created with the owner one reward was that the contractor who presided
over the effort showed me and others how to properly do a composition
roof which had been foreign to me. Made me forget all the back pain next
day.

Even the most conservative and libertarian among us actually got where
we are with a tremendous amount of public and private help.

And, at least for me, with help from parents who really cared. That
seems to be a huge problem these days. Family structures seem actually
more intact in not-so-developed countries.

 

[[email protected]]

[email protected] wrote:

On Apr 5, 11:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:

[snip]

I'm not a vociferous critic of the U.S. - which Jim would understand
if he wasn't such an ill-educated redneck - and his opinions on other
people's ignorance are totally vitiated by his own.
What cage do you live in, Slowman?
The one defined by world outside the cage in which Jim is confined by
his ignorance and prejudice. Jim is a citizen of a gated community in
Phoenix, Arizona - I'm a citizen of the world.

I don't live in a gated community. I live in an ordinary middle-class
neighborhood that includes Black and Pakistani and Indian (from New
Delhi) next-door neighbors.

But nobody who is short of money ....

[snip]

Slowman is just jealous... when he was born and fell out of the
horse's ass, she kicked him in the head ;-)

Jim likes his traditional redneck insults, and lacks the wit to
modernise them.

Slowman hasn't been gainfully employed for more than a few months at a
time... employers quickly note his incompetence.

As usual, Jim is way out of touch with reality. In fact my employers
have always regarded me as unusually competent. Cambridge Instruments
did make me redundant after I'd worked there for nine years but that
was all about management incompetence, not mine ...

So he lives in high unemployment areas of the world where he won't
stand out and be noticed.

As an electronic engineer with no formal training in electronics and a
Ph.D.in Physical Chemistry I do tend to stand out, independent of the
level of unemployment - which isn't actually all that high around here
at the moment.

(Our current unemployment numbers came out today... 4.4% ;-)

The Dutch unemployment rate was 5.5% last year.

http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/themas...aties/artikelen/archief/2007/2007-2156-wm.htm

and it is lower this year. There is actually a shortage of electronic
engineers and it drives me nuts - the employment agencies keep on re-
advertising jobs for which I ought to be a excellent candidate, and
reject my job applications out of hand, if they bother to respond to
them at all. As far as I can see, it is mostly ageism - I'm 64 and
Dutch employers don't really believe that anybody over 55 should still
be working. The idea that someone might want to work after they have
turned 65 just doesn't compute.

 

[[email protected]]

On Apr 5, 11:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:

03:24 -0700, [email protected] wrote:
On Apr 4, 8:15 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-
Site.com> wrote:
[snip]
Eeyore and Slowman have no clue. Our private charities are far more
efficient that ANY government entity.
I wonder how Jim measures the efficiency of a private charity? Or for
that matter how he defines it?
Benefit/cost ratio.

Which would only work if you could value benefits and costs in the
same units - presumably dollars. The effectiveness of a charity
depends not only on the quantity of goods they transfer to the
recipients, but also on the timing of the transfers, and the
proportion of the appropriate recipients that they reach. Since the
costs and benefits can't be expressed in the same units, you can only
talk about effectiveness, not efficiency.

That's exactly where charity excels. They see a need very quickly and
react pretty much immediately.

In the immediate community. They tend to do worse when the need is on
the wrong side of tracks.

And the point I was making was that you can't describe this in terms
of efficiency, but only in terms of effectiveness, which is much
harder to quantify.

I could give you tons of examples from
here but that could be considered boasting. And on some occasions I
couldn't because it breaks confidentiality.

And examples don't tell us anything about the people who needed help,
but didn't get it becasue nobody knew that they neede help ....

If they talk about countries like the US, possibly. Here, you can easily
go to a food closet. Typically run by county organizations and churches.
There you can usually get more food than you can possibly consume. How
do I know? Our church runs one. Much of that comes from members of the
congregation who have large orchards. Then we have the "senior gleaners"
who pick fruit at other properties that would otherwise go to waste
because the owners aren't interested in it. Let me tell you, that is top
notch gourmet stuff. The supermarkets can't even touch that level of
quality.

Which makes it seasonal - and you aren't talking about a balanced
diet. Historically, getting through the winter was the difficult bit.

 

[Joerg]

On Apr 5, 11:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:

<[email protected]> wrote:

On 4 Apr 2007 16:03:24 -0700, [email protected] wrote:

On Apr 4, 8:15 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-
Site.com> wrote:

[snip]

Eeyore and Slowman have no clue. Our private charities are far more
efficient that ANY government entity.

I wonder how Jim measures the efficiency of a private charity? Or for
that matter how he defines it?

Benefit/cost ratio.

Which would only work if you could value benefits and costs in the
same units - presumably dollars. The effectiveness of a charity
depends not only on the quantity of goods they transfer to the
recipients, but also on the timing of the transfers, and the
proportion of the appropriate recipients that they reach. Since the
costs and benefits can't be expressed in the same units, you can only
talk about effectiveness, not efficiency.

That's exactly where charity excels. They see a need very quickly and
react pretty much immediately.

In the immediate community. They tend to do worse when the need is on
the wrong side of tracks.

Well, let's see. Our folks were in Louisiana after the hurricane, then
in Russia, then in rural Mexiko, then in Guatemala, then...

Not exactly the immediate community ;-)

And the point I was making was that you can't describe this in terms
of efficiency, but only in terms of effectiveness, which is much
harder to quantify.

I am sure it's quite effective when the team leaves and the locals
suddenly have several more houses.

And examples don't tell us anything about the people who needed help,
but didn't get it becasue nobody knew that they neede help ....

Ok, I agree that that will always be the case. So, would government
agencies know better who needs the most help? With all due respect, I
doubt that. In the case of a church the communication is nearly instant.
Or in this day and age it's really instant (Internet). Goes from one
pastor to another, usually. No bureaucracy, no budget approval waits,
IOW no red tape. People roll up the sleeves and do it. And yeah, most of
the time they pay their own travel expenses. Or the congregation pitches in.

Which makes it seasonal - and you aren't talking about a balanced
diet. Historically, getting through the winter was the difficult bit.

In California there is fresh fruit year round except in the dead of
winter. Yeah, it's seasonal but so is our own food here at home. In the
winter we distribute food from markets, the same stuff we eat except
that we pay for it. What is handed out is more healthy than what the
average citizen consumes. But people do have to make an effort in food
preparation. There won't be any fast food or TV dinner packages, it's
all fresh.

Sometimes we deliver cooked meals, for example if someone is disabled or
goes through chemo and just can't hold it together for now.

 

[[email protected]]

On Apr 6, 7:11 pm, Joerg <[email protected]>
wrote:

[email protected] wrote:
On Apr 5, 11:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:
03:24 -0700, [email protected] wrote:
On Apr 4, 8:15 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-
Site.com> wrote:
[snip]
Eeyore and Slowman have no clue. Our private charities are far more
efficient that ANY government entity.
I wonder how Jim measures the efficiency of a private charity? Or for
that matter how he defines it?
Benefit/cost ratio.
Which would only work if you could value benefits and costs in the
same units - presumably dollars. The effectiveness of a charity
depends not only on the quantity of goods they transfer to the
recipients, but also on the timing of the transfers, and the
proportion of the appropriate recipients that they reach. Since the
costs and benefits can't be expressed in the same units, you can only
talk about effectiveness, not efficiency.
That's exactly where charity excels. They see a need very quickly and
react pretty much immediately.

In the immediate community. They tend to do worse when the need is on
the wrong side of tracks.

Well, let's see. Our folks were in Louisiana after the hurricane, then
in Russia, then in rural Mexico, then in Guatemala, then...

Not exactly the immediate community ;-)

And the point I was making was that you can't describe this in terms
of efficiency, but only in terms of effectiveness, which is much
harder to quantify.

I am sure it's quite effective when the team leaves and the locals
suddenly have several more houses.

Jim was claiming that private charity was more efficient than
government-based social security, and I was making the point that
efficiency isn't an appropriate concept for doing this kind of
comparison.

Ok, I agree that that will always be the case. So, would government
agencies know better who needs the most help?

They have a duty to be comprehensive, which no private charity does.

With all due respect, I
doubt that. In the case of a church the communication is nearly instant.
Or in this day and age it's really instant (Internet). Goes from one
pastor to another, usually.

Within your denomination.

No bureaucracy, no budget approval waits,
IOW no red tape.

But no duty to be comprehensive, and no mechanism for testing that
everybody who needs help is getting it.

People roll up the sleeves and do it. And yeah, most of
the time they pay their own travel expenses. Or the congregation pitches in.

Fine, as far as it goes.

In California there is fresh fruit year round except in the dead of
winter. Yeah, it's seasonal but so is our own food here at home. In the
winter we distribute food from markets, the same stuff we eat except
that we pay for it. What is handed out is more healthy than what the
average citizen consumes. But people do have to make an effort in food
preparation. There won't be any fast food or TV dinner packages, it's
all fresh.

Sometimes we deliver cooked meals, for example if someone is disabled or
goes through chemo and just can't hold it together for now.

Sounds good, but it is still going to be within your denomination.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

On Apr 5, 11:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:
[snip]

I'm not a vociferous critic of the U.S. - which Jim would understand
if he wasn't such an ill-educated redneck - and his opinions on other
people's ignorance are totally vitiated by his own.


What cage do you live in, Slowman?


The one defined by world outside the cage in which Jim is confined by
his ignorance and prejudice. Jim is a citizen of a gated community in
Phoenix, Arizona - I'm a citizen of the world.

I don't live in a gated community. I live in an ordinary middle-class
neighborhood that includes Black and Pakistani and Indian (from New
Delhi) next-door neighbors.

[snip]

Slowman is just jealous... when he was born and fell out of the
horse's ass, she kicked him in the head ;-)

Slowman hasn't been gainfully employed for more than a few months at a
time... employers quickly note his incompetence.

So he lives in high unemployment areas of the world where he won't
stand out and be noticed.

I wonder how much of his wife's money Bill gives to charity?



--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Jim Thompson]

[snip]

Slowman is just jealous... when he was born and fell out of the
horse's ass, she kicked him in the head ;-)

Slowman hasn't been gainfully employed for more than a few months at a
time... employers quickly note his incompetence.

So he lives in high unemployment areas of the world where he won't
stand out and be noticed.

I wonder how much of his wife's money Bill gives to charity?

Slowman doesn't have a charitable bone in his body. All mouth and no
performance.

...Jim Thompson

 

[Joerg]

On Apr 6, 7:11 pm, Joerg <[email protected]>
wrote:

[email protected] wrote:

On Apr 5, 11:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:

<[email protected]> wrote:

On 4 Apr 2007 16:03:24 -0700, [email protected] wrote:

On Apr 4, 8:15 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-
Site.com> wrote:

[snip]

Eeyore and Slowman have no clue. Our private charities are far more
efficient that ANY government entity.

I wonder how Jim measures the efficiency of a private charity? Or for
that matter how he defines it?

Benefit/cost ratio.

Which would only work if you could value benefits and costs in the
same units - presumably dollars. The effectiveness of a charity
depends not only on the quantity of goods they transfer to the
recipients, but also on the timing of the transfers, and the
proportion of the appropriate recipients that they reach. Since the
costs and benefits can't be expressed in the same units, you can only
talk about effectiveness, not efficiency.

That's exactly where charity excels. They see a need very quickly and
react pretty much immediately.

In the immediate community. They tend to do worse when the need is on
the wrong side of tracks.

Well, let's see. Our folks were in Louisiana after the hurricane, then
in Russia, then in rural Mexico, then in Guatemala, then...

Not exactly the immediate community ;-)

And the point I was making was that you can't describe this in terms
of efficiency, but only in terms of effectiveness, which is much
harder to quantify.

I am sure it's quite effective when the team leaves and the locals
suddenly have several more houses.

Jim was claiming that private charity was more efficient than
government-based social security, and I was making the point that
efficiency isn't an appropriate concept for doing this kind of
comparison.

Ok, I agree that that will always be the case. So, would government
agencies know better who needs the most help?

They have a duty to be comprehensive, which no private charity does.

When I see who falls through the cracks at times I have the occasional
doubt about that comprehensiveness.

Within your denomination.

Absolutely not. Food closet example: We neither ask for that nor urge
them to come to Sunday services. All we ask them is "How many family
members?" in order to figure how much food they'd need. And we believe
what they say in response. And it doesn't matter in what language.

But no duty to be comprehensive, and no mechanism for testing that
everybody who needs help is getting it.

Yep, I've seen how that goes in Europe. A very sick relative was denied
increased care by a government agency into which people must pay. She
could not even move enough to get herself into bed yet they declined.
Rubber stamp goes down, bang, "Denied". So far for being comprehensive.

Fine, as far as it goes.




Sounds good, but it is still going to be within your denomination.

Absolutamente not. They don't even have to be Christians. We don't ask.
Jesus didn't either.

 

[Jim Thompson]

[email protected] wrote:

On Apr 6, 7:11 pm, Joerg <[email protected]>
wrote:

[email protected] wrote:

On Apr 5, 11:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:

On Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:23:52 -0700, John Larkin


On 4 Apr 2007 16:03:24 -0700, [email protected] wrote:

On Apr 4, 8:15 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-
Site.com> wrote:

[snip]

Eeyore and Slowman have no clue. Our private charities are far more
efficient that ANY government entity.

I wonder how Jim measures the efficiency of a private charity? Or for
that matter how he defines it?

Benefit/cost ratio.

Which would only work if you could value benefits and costs in the
same units - presumably dollars. The effectiveness of a charity
depends not only on the quantity of goods they transfer to the
recipients, but also on the timing of the transfers, and the
proportion of the appropriate recipients that they reach. Since the
costs and benefits can't be expressed in the same units, you can only
talk about effectiveness, not efficiency.

That's exactly where charity excels. They see a need very quickly and
react pretty much immediately.

In the immediate community. They tend to do worse when the need is on
the wrong side of tracks.

Well, let's see. Our folks were in Louisiana after the hurricane, then
in Russia, then in rural Mexico, then in Guatemala, then...

Not exactly the immediate community ;-)


And the point I was making was that you can't describe this in terms
of efficiency, but only in terms of effectiveness, which is much
harder to quantify.

I am sure it's quite effective when the team leaves and the locals
suddenly have several more houses.

Jim was claiming that private charity was more efficient than
government-based social security, and I was making the point that
efficiency isn't an appropriate concept for doing this kind of
comparison.

I could give you tons of examples from
here but that could be considered boasting. And on some occasions I
couldn't because it breaks confidentiality.

And examples don't tell us anything about the people who needed help,
but didn't get it because nobody knew that they needed help ....

Ok, I agree that that will always be the case. So, would government
agencies know better who needs the most help?

They have a duty to be comprehensive, which no private charity does.

When I see who falls through the cracks at times I have the occasional
doubt about that comprehensiveness.

Within your denomination.

Absolutely not. Food closet example: We neither ask for that nor urge
them to come to Sunday services. All we ask them is "How many family
members?" in order to figure how much food they'd need. And we believe
what they say in response. And it doesn't matter in what language.

But no duty to be comprehensive, and no mechanism for testing that
everybody who needs help is getting it.

Yep, I've seen how that goes in Europe. A very sick relative was denied
increased care by a government agency into which people must pay. She
could not even move enough to get herself into bed yet they declined.
Rubber stamp goes down, bang, "Denied". So far for being comprehensive.

Fine, as far as it goes.




Sounds good, but it is still going to be within your denomination.

Absolutamente not. They don't even have to be Christians. We don't ask.
Jesus didn't either.

Slowman will never understand that "government competency" or
"government efficiency" are oxymorons.

...Jim Thompson

 

[krw]

Slowman will never understand that "government competency" or
"government efficiency" are oxymorons.

Slowman really believes them when they knock on the door and say,
"we're from the government and were here to help you".

Hey Slowman, you know that every one of those government bureaucrats
is a paid employee. My bet is that none are in Joerg's church's food
shelf.

 

[Joerg]

Slowman really believes them when they knock on the door and say,
"we're from the government and were here to help you".

Hey Slowman, you know that every one of those government bureaucrats
is a paid employee. My bet is that none are in Joerg's church's food
shelf.

Nope. No pay. And when delivery is needed there won't be any gas money
either. Which is ok.

 

[John Larkin]

Slowman will never understand that "government competency" or
"government efficiency" are oxymorons.

...Jim Thompson

He, like Homer, defends government so that they can justify doing
nothing *personal* to help others. In other words pay taxes (which
they must) but make no other effort. All the theory is just
hand-waving to disguise indifference.

Which is why he won't read my book.

John

 

[[email protected]]

On Apr 7, 1:42 am, Joerg <[email protected]>
wrote:

[email protected] wrote:
On Apr 6, 7:11 pm, Joerg <[email protected]>
wrote:
[email protected] wrote:
On Apr 5, 11:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:
03:24 -0700, [email protected] wrote:
On Apr 4, 8:15 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-
Site.com> wrote:
[snip]
Eeyore and Slowman have no clue. Our private charities are far more
efficient that ANY government entity.
I wonder how Jim measures the efficiency of a private charity? Or for
that matter how he defines it?
Benefit/cost ratio.
Which would only work if you could value benefits and costs in the
same units - presumably dollars. The effectiveness of a charity
depends not only on the quantity of goods they transfer to the
recipients, but also on the timing of the transfers, and the
proportion of the appropriate recipients that they reach. Since the
costs and benefits can't be expressed in the same units, you can only
talk about effectiveness, not efficiency.
That's exactly where charity excels. They see a need very quickly and
react pretty much immediately.
In the immediate community. They tend to do worse when the need is on
the wrong side of tracks.
Well, let's see. Our folks were in Louisiana after the hurricane, then
in Russia, then in rural Mexico, then in Guatemala, then...
Not exactly the immediate community ;-)
And the point I was making was that you can't describe this in terms
of efficiency, but only in terms of effectiveness, which is much
harder to quantify.
I am sure it's quite effective when the team leaves and the locals
suddenly have several more houses.

Jim was claiming that private charity was more efficient than
government-based social security, and I was making the point that
efficiency isn't an appropriate concept for doing this kind of
comparison.

They have a duty to be comprehensive, which no private charity does.

When I see who falls through the cracks at times I have the occasional
doubt about that comprehensiveness.

Me too - human agencies are always fallible - but at least they are
designed and conceived to be fallible.

Absolutely not. Food closet example: We neither ask for that nor urge
them to come to Sunday services. All we ask them is "How many family
members?" in order to figure how much food they'd need. And we believe
what they say in response. And it doesn't matter in what language.

But how do you get to know that they need help? If your communication
mostly works pastor to pastor, your targets are basically limited to
their congregations and their acquaintances. Even if you do help non-
church-goers - quite a few Christian charities are less generous - you
have to know that they need help i order to offer it.

Yep, I've seen how that goes in Europe. A very sick relative was denied
increased care by a government agency into which people must pay. She
could not even move enough to get herself into bed yet they declined.
Rubber stamp goes down, bang, "Denied". So far for being comprehensive.

Human agencies are always fallible.

Absolutamente not. They don't even have to be Christians. We don't ask.
Jesus didn't either.

Sure. But you do need some kind of social contact to know that they
need help. And you don't really know what Jesus did - the gospels
weren't constructed as precise historical records.

 

[[email protected]]

He, like Homer, defends government so that they can justify doing
nothing *personal* to help others. In other words pay taxes (which
they must) but make no other effort. All the theory is just
hand-waving to disguise indifference.

This is strictly your own (ill-founded) theory - you simply don't know
what I do or don't do to help other people. Quite apart from the
biblical advice not to boast about one's own charitable acts, anything
I did claim here would probably be distorted by Jim Thompson or one of
the other resident psychopaths into something that they could report
to the CIS or some such other lunatic fringe organisation.

Which is why he won't read my book.

That's not why I not going to order your book from Amazon. I'm not a
Republican or a Christian. What is my interest in reading a book
clearly designed to flatter members of these two groups? Why should I
pay good money to buy such a book? You haven't told me anything about
it that suggests that it is going to tell me anything that will change
my view of the world ...

 

[[email protected]]

Slowman really believes them when they knock on the door and say,
"we're from the government and were here to help you".

Perhaps you meant to type "we're from the government and we're here to
help you".

Hey Slowman, you know that every one of those government bureaucrats
is a paid employee. My bet is that none are in Joerg's church's food
shelf.

That means that the government bureaucrats can do the job full-time,
which probably isn't true of the volunteers running Joerg's church's
food shelf.

The theory that all goverment agencies are inefficient and incompetent
is promoted by people who really don't like paying taxes - such as the
Republican Party. Less ideologically blinkered folk have long since
recognised that some jobs are best tackled by government agencies -
notably those that can be characterised as "natural monopolies", which
is an insight that goes back to the 19th century. It's odd that a
thoroughly reactionary crew like the Republican Party don't know
enough history to avoid repeating the errors of the past.

If you want to see how private enterprise fails in these sorts of
jobs, look at Microsoft and Enron. Where you can have real
competition, the free market works remarkably well, but the
ideologically driven "privatisations" that started in the 1980's have
produced a considerable number of disasters.

 

[[email protected]]

[email protected] wrote:

On Apr 7, 1:42 am, Joerg <[email protected]>
wrote:
[email protected] wrote:
On Apr 6, 7:11 pm, Joerg <[email protected]>
wrote:
[email protected] wrote:
On Apr 5, 11:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:
03:24 -0700, [email protected] wrote:
On Apr 4, 8:15 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-
Site.com> wrote:
[snip]
Eeyore and Slowman have no clue. Our private charities are far more
efficient that ANY government entity.
I wonder how Jim measures the efficiency of a private charity? Or for
that matter how he defines it?
Benefit/cost ratio.
Which would only work if you could value benefits and costs in the
same units - presumably dollars. The effectiveness of a charity
depends not only on the quantity of goods they transfer to the
recipients, but also on the timing of the transfers, and the
proportion of the appropriate recipients that they reach. Since the
costs and benefits can't be expressed in the same units, you can only
talk about effectiveness, not efficiency.
That's exactly where charity excels. They see a need very quickly and
react pretty much immediately.
In the immediate community. They tend to do worse when the need is on
the wrong side of tracks.
Well, let's see. Our folks were in Louisiana after the hurricane, then
in Russia, then in rural Mexico, then in Guatemala, then...
Not exactly the immediate community ;-)
And the point I was making was that you can't describe this in terms
of efficiency, but only in terms of effectiveness, which is much
harder to quantify.
I am sure it's quite effective when the team leaves and the locals
suddenly have several more houses.
Jim was claiming that private charity was more efficient than
government-based social security, and I was making the point that
efficiency isn't an appropriate concept for doing this kind of
comparison.
I could give you tons of examples from
here but that could be considered boasting. And on some occasions I
couldn't because it breaks confidentiality.
And examples don't tell us anything about the people who needed help,
but didn't get it because nobody knew that they needed help ....
Ok, I agree that that will always be the case. So, would government
agencies know better who needs the most help?
They have a duty to be comprehensive, which no private charity does.

When I see who falls through the cracks at times I have the occasional
doubt about that comprehensiveness.

Absolutely not. Food closet example: We neither ask for that nor urge
them to come to Sunday services. All we ask them is "How many family
members?" in order to figure how much food they'd need. And we believe
what they say in response. And it doesn't matter in what language.

Yep, I've seen how that goes in Europe. A very sick relative was denied
increased care by a government agency into which people must pay. She
could not even move enough to get herself into bed yet they declined.
Rubber stamp goes down, bang, "Denied". So far for being comprehensive.

Absolutamente not. They don't even have to be Christians. We don't ask.
Jesus didn't either.

Slowman will never understand that "government competency" or
"government efficiency" are oxymorons.

Jim is too much influenced by the incompetence and inefficiency of the
Republican administration that he seems to have voted for. People who
don't have an ideological investment in minimal government tend to be
less blinkered.

 

[[email protected]]

On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:11:10 GMT, Joerg

[email protected] wrote:
On Apr 5, 11:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:

[snip]

I'm not a vociferous critic of the U.S. - which Jim would understand
if he wasn't such an ill-educated redneck - and his opinions on other
people's ignorance are totally vitiated by his own.
What cage do you live in, Slowman?
The one defined by world outside the cage in which Jim is confined by
his ignorance and prejudice. Jim is a citizen of a gated community in
Phoenix, Arizona - I'm a citizen of the world.

I don't live in a gated community. I live in an ordinary middle-class
neighborhood that includes Black and Pakistani and Indian (from New
Delhi) next-door neighbors.

[snip]

Slowman is just jealous... when he was born and fell out of the
horse's ass, she kicked him in the head ;-)

Slowman hasn't been gainfully employed for more than a few months at a
time... employers quickly note his incompetence.

So he lives in high unemployment areas of the world where he won't
stand out and be noticed.

I wonder how much of his wife's money Bill gives to charity?

Some - if we agree that something deserves support, and work out how
much we want to give, I'll organise the electronic funds transfer out
of our joint account.

We also have personal bank accounts which we use to support stuff that
we individually believe in - for instance my wife likes the Dutch
Greenpeace organisation, while I detest it.