Comments by "William Innes" (@williaminnes6635) on "Channel 4 News" channel.

  1. "As well as national governments, Mazzucato has also served as an economic advisor to international institutions, including the World Economic Forum, the European Commission, the World Health Organization, the OECD, and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs." She may or may not be a villain, but she does have the CV one would expect of one.
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  2. I always hate it when I agree with the UN.
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  3. I admire the way Singapore is set up, at least on paper. Worked with builders for a while. There was a housing project across from one of our sites. Place had been built 20 years prior and was unoccupied, having been declared unfit for human habitation. It was in a neighbourhood where it was surrounded by century homes. My boss at the time commented that it frustrated him because he knew he could easily have turned a profit while getting the right people to maintain it, but everything was controlled by people with political connections. Public housing here is a bit of a meme as housing goes, but it is an excellent jobs program. The builders who know the developers who know and donate to the politicians get the contracts. If they can get some diversity Becky of an architect who leaves a blueprint riddled with errors, so much the better, that then becomes time and materials. The maintenance guys get to be low level patronage picks, as if the entire structure degrades, it means a contract to have it demolished, and a contract to have it replaced. Then the cycle can repeat itself. In Singapore, on the other hand, with their lack of land, they would beat you black and blue for acting like the affordable housing maintenance guys, shoot you for acting like the politicians, and are able to have a system where housing projects are the default place people live, except for the ultra-rich. However, becoming a Singapore is difficult, since nobody all ready involved in a less strict system wants to be caned or shot for carrying on as they have in the past.
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  4. Corbyn nuked himself by turning remoaner.
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  5. My sense is the whole thing's an indirect pitch for more consulting. If the state grows indefinitely, then unless we move into a system where an omniscient web of sensors record all output and apply nudges to all humans within it - think Mussolini's fascist ideal, except run by an algorithm - then the normal hiring patterns dictated by the logic of jobs programs will prevail. This means the departments and bureaus increasingly placed in position of authority over social life will continue to be stocked by semi-competents and patronage picks wedded to flight from accountability. A fascism of the human rather than silicon variety would be a paradise of the consultancy firm.
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  6. That last part is where the rub comes. Singapore can successfully build housing projects that are fit for human habitation in the long run, but in Singapore, they cane the lazy and shoot the corrupt. Nobody who is in the civil service all ready has any desire to be subject to a Singaporean standard, and Lee Kwan Yew was in the interesting position of being handed the perfect peninsula over what was to be the most important trade route in the world by the only part of the world where the British Empire completely cleaned up after itself. Most countries begin with a far messier board state and a far less competent founding father.
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