[ExI] Is unemployment the future?

[Sockpuppet99@hotmail.com]

All this indicates, Mike, is that engineers are imbedded in the social  
context of their time and you are no more likely to get a good result  
out of an engineer than out of anyone else. In fact, I would argue  
that Carter was a horrible, micromanaging president precisely because  
he was an engineer.

Tom D

Sent from my iPod

On Nov 7, 2009, at 12:46 PM, Michael LaTorra <mlatorra at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Spike,
> In our system of tripartite government structure, our presidents do  
> not wield the same unchecked power that the Chinese leaders do. The  
> US Congress (mostly lawyers) and the Supereme Court (entirely  
> lawyers) can block, undo, or dillute whatever a president proposes  
> to do.
>
> In the case of President Carter, we had a man who understood the  
> long-term energy problem and tried to take steps to avert it. He had  
> solar panels installed on the roof of the White House.
> "In 1977, Carter convinced the Democratic Congress to create the  
> United States Department of Energy (DoE) with the goal of conserving  
> energy. Carter also signed the National Energy Act (NEA) and the  
> Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA). The purpose of these  
> watershed laws was to encourage energy conservation and the  
> development of national energy resources, including renewables such  
> as wind and solar energy." (from Wikipedia.org)
>
> In the case of President Hoover, we had a man who eschewed the  
> engineer's penchant for design and process control, opting instead  
> for minimal government the time of the Great Depression, when  
> precisely the opposite was needed. Hoover acted too-little like an  
> engineer when he most needed to.
> "President Hoover's stance on the economy was based largely on  
> volunteerism. From before his entry to the presidency, he was a  
> proponent of the concept that public-private cooperation was the way  
> to achieve high long-term growth. Hoover feared that too much  
> intervention or coercion by the government would destroy  
> individuality and self-reliance, which he considered to be important  
> American values. Both his ideals and the economy were put to the  
> test with the onset of The Great Depression. At the outset of the  
> Depression, Hoover claims in his memoirs that he rejected Treasury  
> Secretary Mellon's suggested "leave-it-alone" approach. Critics,  
> such as liberal economist Paul Krugman, who wrote The Conscience of  
> a Liberal, contend that Hoover shared Mellon's laissez-faire  
> viewpoint." (from Wikipedia.org)
> Regards,
> Mike
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 12:04 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> ...On Behalf Of Michael LaTorra
> ...
>
>        I'd like to see more scientists and engineers in our  
> government,
> rather than the lawyers and bankers who control the United States of  
> Goldman
> Sachs.
>
>        Regards,
>        Mike LaTorra
>
>
>
> Mike I would agree in principle, but our experience with it so far  
> has been
> mostly bad.  We have had two presidents which could properly be  
> credited
> with a background in engineering and sciences: Herbert Hoover and  
> Jimmy
> Carter.  Both were failures.
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20091107/59f3bdb4/attachment.html>