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To: HG who wrote (4926)	9/3/2002 1:05:11 PM
From: MSI	Respond to of 306849

Extremely important points. I have come to a different POV, after much study. Industrial revolution never worked the way it was envisaged to work Industrialization and automation are working just wonderfully to create productivity, both real and imagined. The reason for the tendency towards enslavement, decreasing available time and decreasing standard of life is the fact that we now have a completely non-representative government. Taxes are not voted to be raised by the electorate, but special programs are instead instituted by lobbyists and insiders, who run things and avoid any accountability. It has gotten so bad that now government soaks up something close to 40% of GDP in make-work projects from DOD, which makes war, to destructive social programs whose purpose is to make dependents. imho, the govt now tends to provide more benefits than it used to do back then... Exactly right. And we don't get any real improvements, do we? In "Dependent on DC", Twight clearly shows how government policy since the 1940's has been incremental dependency for the maximum number of citizens on government. It's simply in the self-interest of those in government who benefit. Unfortunately, it is neither disclosed nor accountable. The shock isn't that bureacracies work that way, the shock is the exhaustive list of outright lies by leadership at various critical points in legislation, from SS to IRS to create what one lawmaker called "a taxing machine", and now what is clearly becoming a "war machine". The human problem in gov't is that when you give enormous power and funding, they'll quite naturally find a use for it. Unfortunately, the usage works directly against the interests of the American people, and in favor of insiders and yet still more gov't. Get rid of all but the fully-disclosed regulatory authority, and fully-debated powers of self-defense, and people will organize themselves for both work and liesure with full knowledge. Unfortunately, now no one knows how much benefit they pay for, or get, except to quote Will Rogers' maxim, "Well, it's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for!". The difference is a trillion per year, or more. But worse, the heavy hand of gov't creates enormous unaccounted-for TRANSACTION COSTS that bog down the liesure and productivity time we're talking about, more trillions. Television is one of the areas of regulation where the FCC coordinates INCREASE CONCENTRATION of ownership and therefore a decrease in any sort of intelligent content. Therefore mass media consists of sales messages almost exclusively, selling consumer items and government policy. Government itself has thousands of "public relations" staffs (all departments have them in their budgets, we pay for false information about our money and policies) so that all information is politicized, filling the airwaves with the "messages of the day", rather than any information. Solution: require absolutely full disclosure, and make it a felony for ANY secret government money for media influence, whether spook-journalists or backroom deals with executives. Bottom line - we should by now have the benefits you describe. IMO it is the intrusion of greedy and unaccountable gov't that soaks up those benefits of progress, and needs to be held fully accountable for every dollar and every public program and person by authorizing web availability for all electronic data on all departmental activities, with very few exceptions. A good example is the public-interest website showing where the $80 billion in farm subsidies went! You could enter an address and see who in your town was receiving cash from the gov't for not growing crops... No gov't funds used, just authorization to release the information. Instead, we have the opposite, greater control, greater secrecy, and less time, money or information with which to improve daily life. "Let the government do it" is the slogan.