Neither is obviously more efficient than the other overall, it depends on the structure and the incentives. People worry about private prisons for example. If you make it so the government sends people to prisons and you pay the prison a fixed rate per prisoner, of course you're gonna get skimping on services by the prisons. If you instead give the prisoner a voucher for a prison and make them pick where they go and prisons get money per voucher they get from prisoners, you're gonna get competition on quality so you'll get high quality prisons. Opposite outcomes with just a change to incentives.

The current US Federal Trade Commission is quite agressive compared to other FTCs historically.

"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but it's source. True humility is the only antidote to shame." -Uncle Iroh

That's kind of true in some parts of the US, indirectly. Some places criminalize not being homeless but all the things that are the result of being homeless like sleeping outside or in public places. But there are a lot of places in the US that do provide for the homeless. New York City has a right to housing provision, for example.

Increasing the money supply didn't help the poor and instead helped the rich just like every other time we've tried that?! I can't believe it!

They just don't want to govern.

Yes. They want paychecks without work, responsibility, or blame.

They don't want there to be a government.

No. I see no evidence of that. Every chance people get to raise military or police spending or make up new laws to restrict people's choices, they take it.

Interestingly something like 41% of women identify as pro-life. I know you and the person you were responding to probably wouldn't, but my point is just that there are a lot of women who would see their conservative male partner vote for anti-abortion candidates and not be bothered at all. Not because they're rationalizing it, but because they don't see it as a negative in the first place.

I'm going to assume this is a made up story for the sake of my mental health.

The religion he's talking about isn't Christianity. Trump wouldn't recognize Jesus Christ if he smacked him in the face. He's talking about Trumpism.

I think he thinks he'll lose, and he thinks a big loss is actually less believable to his supporters than a close loss, so he's trying to create a big loss, which will make more of his supporters Jan 6 2.0.

We don't just allow construction in risky places, we subsidize it. If you're an owner or developer and you wanna put your own money at risk by building in risky places, you should be allowed to do that. Just don't expect me to pay for it through taxes and FEMA flood insurance.

Another explanation is that American cuisine got wrecked by the Great Depression. Everything that had flavor was expensive. People's inability to purchase and make certain foods stopped generational transfer of knowledge on how to make certain things. Thankfully, after several generations it's finally recovering.

"Ethnic" food (non European) wasn't as affected as much.

I heard an interview about a book on it a few years ago but now I can't find it.