This is not a follow-up to the post on cryptocurrencies, but it may as well be in some ways. When you consider the fact that only our government can print legal tender (Constitutionally true, but factually not exactly true, since lots of non-governmental resources are often used as 'money' - think stocks, bonds, mortgage swaps, etc.), placing your trust in anything the government does or provides is rather foolish. Markets survive on trust. Without trust, no market works. The legal and regulatory frameworks which underpin markets are useful and beneficial, but they change frequently (and sometimes not a little), so saying the markets survive because of them is not true - if anything, they survive because markets do need some small level of enforcement mechanisms to function efficiently.
At any rate, the reason I'm writing this is because of my most recent experience with government. Applying for unemployment. I've had my problems with the postal service (government run is a disaster which costs us billions a year in tax dollars that are wasted), Amtrak (government run money losing crap service), the DMV (no explanation necessary), and a host of other government services. So when I'm told "the government can provide..." I scoff. I reject unequivocally. Government is a failure on many levels, and the sooner we understand this the better, because government is not the solution. It's the problem.
I ended my employment in February. I applied for unemployment, but was rejected (as I should have been) because of my severance payment. However, protocol requires certifying on the first eligible day. So I was to reapply in June, after the severance ran out. Which I did. And nothing happened. After a week, I checked in and found a hold on my account and a number to call. After 2 hours on the phone, during which I was transferred twice and then cut off, I finally reached a competent and friendly woman who did all the legwork needed, and took my number in case we were cut off, to determine that the state and completely botched management of my claim. It now turns out I'm owed back unemployment insurance because they misfiled my claim and as a result I lost out on 24 weeks of coverage that I was entitled to due to the pandemic. I should note, that once she'd solved all my issues, I was cut off a second time. Thankfully without a need to call back, though I should say hopefully.
At this point, I should note that in the 5 months I've been laid off, I've now spent 5 hours on the phone with NY State Unemployment trying to solve problems with my account. The idea is to get me back to work - and those are 5 hours I could have spent productively elsewhere...even searching for a job or replying to other inquiries I'd engaged.
One may be inclined to say "would you rather have the 5 hours back or solve the problem?" I'm inclined to reply I would prefer to not have had the problem and not wasted the 5 hours - which were not my fault, but due to a bureaucratic error on the part of some unknown official somewhere who hit the wrong processing button.
Errors happen. They happened even in private business, I remember enough that I had to fix at my old job. But the point is private business is far more accountable and I am willing to believe that there is a fraction of the errors or problems that I've experienced with government work, in private industry.
Unaccountable and faceless bureaucrats, or as my father-in-law likes to say "Assholes with a clipboard" cause more problems than they solve. If they didn't, the Soviet Union would still be around.
