The whole central planning Russia meme is overused. China is succeeding beyond anyone's wildest dreams with centralised planning. Every country on earth has centralised planning.

This why engineers exist to translate. They talk to the physicists so the we don't have to*.

*guess the movie reference?

The needed resiliency for buildings and communities in tornado alley would be far beyond cost prohibitive without federal and state subsidy. Tornado resilient buildings are fiction. Today even the most resilient areas will succumb to massive disruption of life and economic output due to tornados. I live in Texas, and when Fort Worth had a tornado in the middle of downtown, talk buildings were essentially out of order for months due to damage. These were modern commercial structures too!

Not sure I follow. TV is not only about shows that speak to a global audience. Games shows, news, serials, sitcoms, dramas, ads, and documentaries collectively help to shape and educate society. How the institution of public television is architected has public purpose implications.

I lived in the UK as an expat for 3 years. My boss who recruited me at the time mentioned often how she could never stand to watch the TV in America. I didn't understand what it was until I started watching UK TV. At first it was really annoying because advertising was limited to mostly insurance ads, and a few household goods. Then it dawned on my how little diversity there was. I had probably gone 6 months without ever having seen a movie trailer or annoying news promos shouting at the viewer. In general, watching UK TV was either a calming or relaxed experience. The volumes were lower, the banter more intelligent, and though I gag at saying this, "it warmed the soul." Fast forward three years later coming back to the US. TV is loud, obnoxious, alarming, and basically rile up the viewers. I even learned to the cook decently simply by watching shows by Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver. CNN International was a joy to watch. I can't tell you all the amazing Ricky Gervais material we are missing here in the States. The kicker is that they still have all the best US shows!

Some aspects are very subtle, others are clearly apparent. An example of this watching the news. Compare Canadian or UK news with what we call news in the US. It's truly laughable here with respect to tv news.

I'll take UK TV over US broadcasting anyday.

Most people think broadcasters still operate under an ad revenue model. This not true today. Cable retransmission deals is where the real money is. If broadcasters were limited to the old ad revenue model, the industry would implode.

Personally I think we should have the UK model with a TV license. The programming is far superior and enriching to the minds of the citizenry.

Anyone who thinks the US Constitution is an explicit legal document hasn't read it. Two words: implied powers.

Yet the FDA has enacted hundreds of thousands of rules and regulations during its time, none of which were voted on by the legislature...just like most administrative laws and agency rules.

Thus the issue is not whether congress should be explicit or not in crafting legislation, it is whether congress is crafting reasonably interpretable standards that's can be effectively interpreted and realistically implemented in practice. So basically this boils down to good laws and bad laws. I don't disagree that there are bad laws with good intentions. Dodd-Frank was a law that has a lot of good, but is so complicated and compromised that it will be next to enforceable without either being watered down or strengthened....sadly it's being watered down.

An additionally critiscism I have of your point is that the legal standards for "very specific" is next to meaningless. Evolving standards and education levels of the citizenry make it impossible to be explicit. FDA and Texas Constitution are perfect examples. FDA regulates "drugs." Under you standard some may argue that "drugs" as defined under statute is too broad and not specific enough. Should congress enact legislation with a list of approved drugs and treatments that the FDA should regulate? I think not.

The Texas constitution is another example of how lucky America is that it's constitution provides implicit authority versus Texas's constitution which provides only explicit authority which needs to be amended all the time just to pass some laws. (I'm a Texan). While some may argue that explicit authority is preferable, there realistically too many problems and issues of public importance that need to be addressed only to have one's government handicap itself in carrying out public functions.

None of what you are saying changed the fact that congress has the right to delegate. The case you mentioned is built on the premise that congress has the implied authority to delegate so long as intelligible standards or principles are enacted. A world in in which congress cannot effectively delegate for a country as large as as the US is a country that is likely to fail.

The function of the executive agency is precisely to create and uphold rules. Most people think congressional laws detail out rules; this is mostly wrong. One clear example showing the difference between agency rules and laws is the American Disabilities Act of 1990. It's a very short law, but the executive agencies that enforce the laws have well over 100,000 pages of rules, none of which are defined verbatim in the law.

Congress's job is not to micromanage, it is to appropriate funds, enact legislation and oversee the executive during the life of the legislation.

Balanced budgets, when understood, is a ridiculous idea for the federal government. The federal government, unlike most states are not revenue constrained. Every dollar the federal government deficit spends, is a dollar that goes into the non-public sector economy. Long-term balanced budgets at the federal level would lead to deflation. Budget surpluses like the one under Clinton and Andrew Jackson would lead to recessions or depressions.

The federal government is the net issuer of the currency and does not require taxes to spend. Federal government can spend whatever it wants with the only real cost being inflation. Today we don't have enough inflation or fiscal spending. Our roads and infrastructure require a few trillion dollars just to move from D- to a C rating according to the American civil engineers association. Our public education infrastructure requires about 500B just to repair and maintain existing structures.

These repairs are necessary to satisfy public purpose and no amount of taxes will ever cover it. If George W Bush can wage two wars by simply appropriating funds (fiscal spending) with no harmful inflation, then this country can appropriate similar amounts to fix the country.

#mmt #economics.

"Taxes for revenue is obsolete..." Beardsley Ruml

State regulation of ISP would worsen economic rent-seeking. Back haul capacity would be "managed" through choke points depending on the effectiveness of state regulation.

Furthermore, on principle, this is a horrible idea because the internet should have a national rule making body that governs what is a critical national and global network. There are few practical reasons to push this on the states, especially considering many states are also hostile to municipal broadband initiatives.

US really needs to adopt the UK wholesale back haul, and retail connection service model because the current joint system is riddled with conflicts of interest.

The flaw in your reason is is that inflation adjusted median income growth is a poor measure for purchasing power. You have adjust the median income growth with the expenditures side to get Purchasing Power Parity. Today, middle income people are feel poorer and are poorer than their 1950s 60s counterpart.

Or you switch to dev environments that compile down to native, such as Xamarin.