i <3 stossel, part 536312

[caspian_x]

John Stossel in this article pretty much sums up why I think the government should keep it's grubby, in efficient hands out of healthcare, agriculture, education (at least to less of a degree than it already does), transportation, space exploration, and pretty much everything else it has taken upon itself to remove from the private sector without

Comments

[ubersaurus]

I'd wager it does war a hell of a lot better.

[caspian_x]

Heh, see that's one of the big reasons I'm still an R and not an L. The Libertarians would probably shrug off a lot that I don't think we should ignore. Yes, including Iraq.

*closes can of worms*
*sits on it*

No, you cannot open the can. Not yours.

[clayfoot]

Apparently not, or the military wouldn't be so heavily invested in contractors. The military contracts out everything it possibly can, because it's always more efficient.

[clayfoot]

FWIW, war and national defense are things that can only be done just so efficiently. They are inherently losing propositions. While the private sector still might be able to wage war more efficiently, it still takes a national government to raise the taxes to fund that war, no matter who fights it. That's why national defense is one of the few responsibilities of the federal government named in the Constitution.

[avatrix]

The one business our government runs well (though I don't know if it either runs it "more efficiently" or "better", which are different things) is the US Postal Service. That is, it's the only branch of the government that makes money, rather than loses it.

That said, I agree that our government should generally not be running businesses. It's supposed to create laws, enforce laws, and incorporate the necessities to make #1 and #2 possible. However, that does not preclude regulation. Without regulation, greed causes corruption and the rest of us lose for it.

[caspian_x]

I dunno about that. As Stossel says in the article, the USPS said overnight delivery was impossible. And the USPS is a special case because it's a government-run business in which competition is not utterly destroyed. We still have UPS, FedEx, DHL and others who compete with the USPS on at least shipping, forcing them to provide better service or lose their business. And even with government subsidy, shipping is not necessarily better or cheaper, in my opinion, with USPS.

[avatrix]

I'm not saying that it's better than the market solutions, just that if the USPS doesn't hold up, nothing does. And while it does more poorly at shipping, I haven't seen UPS, FedEx or DHL trying to do standard postal mail, and certainly not at the price and convenience we currently enjoy.

Also, as I noted, the USPS is financially profitable--I don't think it is considered "subsidized" if it generates more revenue that it costs to run.

[caspian_x]

I won't argue the use of the word subsidized, but what I meant was that it's funded by the government. I believe the government funds the postal service which allows the relatively low prices on postal mail. If this was not a factor, I think we may see competition for postal mail from private companies.

[vectorb]

Id like to see a private corporation that does the same job, or as Stosssel is saying, better job than the government more efficiently.

Generally the government is inefficient because it does not have the luxury of cutting out the hard parts of running a country. Any private sector organization that was charged to cover the same responsibilities as the government would be just as inefficient only with less oversight and beholden to noone but their shareholders.

[caspian_x]

I don't really understand that argument. You speak as if the government is one giant department. The Department of Agriculture is not "running the country". The Department of Public Works in a municipality is not "running a city". The reason the government is less efficient is because we have BS civil service laws that prevent government employees from being fired, removing the usual motivating factor to perform in your job, as well as government-run monopolies, such as the water department in the article, which removes all competition and motivation to innovate and bring down price.

[anton_p_nym]

Randroids discussing roads is good for hours of good, clean Schadenfreude.

-- Steve's a Keynesian, and the current crop of Neocon buffoons doesn't look likely to change that opinion.

[kaali_thara]

Well it kinda depends on your definition of efficiency.

Education for example.

Sure, private schools might be more efficient at teaching individual students. Part of the reason for that is that poor children cannot afford private schools. The private schools likewise do not have to accept "problem children", also usually poor.

But privatizing all school would not lead to better education for the poor, it would not bring better education to ALL children. It would lead to NO education for MANY children. I don't think that's a more efficient method of developing an educated society. Though yes, it probably would improve average test scores.

[caspian_x]

I'm not well-educated on the topic (no pun intended) I don't think education could ever be fully privatized. However, introducing some competition back into the market with School Choice could force schools that aren't performing to perform better. Also removing the teachers unions that prevent crappy teachers from being fired would help a lot.

[kaali_thara]

It's not the teachers unions that keep bad teachers from getting fired. It's the overwhelming lack of incentive for people to go into teaching in the first place... cuz there's no salary for it. We have a teacher SHORTAGE, hence programs like Teach for America exist to try and bribe people into teaching for a few years.

I have mixed feelings about school choice. On the one hand it helps individual students get better education. Yet the funding for it bleeds public schools of the very money they need in order to properly educate. How can you really say that a public school is failing when it operates on 1/10 the budget of a private school? Of course it can't perform at the same level. It can't attract the good teachers, it can't buy new books or provide students with access to computers. Nor can it give students the extra-curricular activities that improve involvement and academic performance.