Detroit officially bankrupt

[Fake Boris]

If you can only decide when you're an expert, how are you to buy anything at all?

[Hauldren Collider]

What the **** does that even mean, moron? I don't buy my water services, it's a public utility, and it's not my job to make sure the the **** doesn't flow into the river.

[Fake Boris]

Buying a good or a service involves making a choice.

Are you an expert in everything you buy? How does that invalidate the choices you make?

[Hauldren Collider]

Completely orthogonal to the problem at hand, which is that the person ultimately responsible for the performance of the water system should be the county executive, not some random ******* who nobody knows about but is by a quirk of our electoral system a political office. If you think school boards and water system administrators should be elected, why don't we ****ing elect every middle manager in the county bureaucracy?

By putting this in the hands of some nobody, you make the system LESS accountable, not more, since if there's a problem, the county executive can't just fire this random ******* no one's ever heard of. To remove him means waiting 2-4 years until the next election and hoping voters pay attention to every elected official that is in their voter precinct.

[Ban Kenobi]

If you can only decide when you're an expert, how are you to buy anything at all?

The experts ban anything that's harmful and then consumers pick the brand with the best marketing.

[Fake Boris]

Completely orthogonal to the problem at hand, which is that the person ultimately responsible for the performance of the water system should be the county executive, not some random ******* who nobody knows about but is by a quirk of our electoral system a political office. If you think school boards and water system administrators should be elected, why don't we ****ing elect every middle manager in the county bureaucracy?

By putting this in the hands of some nobody, you make the system LESS accountable, not more, since if there's a problem, the county executive can't just fire this random ******* no one's ever heard of. To remove him means waiting 2-4 years until the next election and hoping voters pay attention to every elected official that is in their voter precinct.

Obscuring the problem behind the county executive doesn't do anything to solve it.

The position doesn't suddenly become more accountable because you've added layers of complexity between the voters and the official...

[Fake Boris]

Completely orthogonal to the problem at hand, which is that the person ultimately responsible for the performance of the water system should be the county executive, not some random ******* who nobody knows about but is by a quirk of our electoral system a political office. If you think school boards and water system administrators should be elected, why don't we ****ing elect every middle manager in the county bureaucracy?

By putting this in the hands of some nobody, you make the system LESS accountable, not more, since if there's a problem, the county executive can't just fire this random ******* no one's ever heard of. To remove him means waiting 2-4 years until the next election and hoping voters pay attention to every elected official that is in their voter precinct.

Obscuring the problem behind the county executive doesn't do anything to solve it.

The position doesn't suddenly become more accountable because you've added layers of complexity between the voters and the official...

[regexcellent]

There is a limited amount of political **** people can be bothered to pay attention to and if you clog it up with elected dog catchers then the dog catcher can win the votes of himself, his wife, and two of his neighbors. That's not democratic.

[Fake Boris]

So you admit the problem does not reside in accountability?

[regexcellent]

Um, no? I didn't even mention accountability, which is a related but slightly separate line of argument.

[KrazyHorse]

How are public workers selected?

Mostly via an overly regimented and bureaucratic process. Why?