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it has been long argued in many circles that many welfare/assistance programs could be better administered by private companies. entrenched government services

it has been long argued in many circles that many welfare/assistance programs could be better administered by private companies. entrenched government services have no incentive to improve and how some governments budget they may have actual disincentives to improvement. does sound like these guys are doing a good job. the best part is that when the need changes they will likely adapt or move into a new business whereas a government support structure would be hard to dismantle the sad part is that some government officials apparently think profit making in this industry is wrong and that is a very bad sign because once you go down that road no business is safe

TeMPOraL 11y ago
I don't think it's the government per se thinking that; they'd probably be happy for someone else to take care of the problem for them, especially if that someone can do it well. But people, on the other hand, well, that's a different thing. Copenhagen interpretation of ethics is strong in all cultures. The thought that someone is making money on helping is unbearable to many, even if there is no comparable non-profit alternative.
vidarh 11y ago
As far as I can tell, this is more expensive than long term government run asylum housing in Norway (hard to compare directly as the costs given for government provision includes a lot of additional costs, but using basic measures for things like nursery provision etc. it'd be extremely unlikely that the actual housing component ends up above even the lower ($31) of those levels). It may still be an ok deal if the contracts are short term, as there's obvious issues now with forecasting how the refugee stream will be even in the near future, and it's worth quite a bit of money to make someone else shoulder most of that risk. > the sad part is that some government officials apparently think profit making in this industry is wrong I haven't seen that. I have seen people question whether some people are profiteering from a difficult situation. This is seen as sort of a national crisis that it would be immoral to take excessive profits from, and there's been others that have e.g. offered up free or significantly discounted hotel rooms and similar (though the cynic in me sees "fantastic high value PR coup" when reading about some of them) that makes it easy to see even relatively modest profit-taking as too high.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I don't think it's the government per se thinking that; they'd probably be happy for someone else to take care of the problem for them, especially if that someone can do it well. But people, on the other hand, well, that's a different thing. Copenhagen interpretation of ethics is strong in all cultures. The thought that someone is making money on helping is unbearable to many, even if there is no comparable non-profit alternative.

vidarh 11y ago

As far as I can tell, this is more expensive than long term government run asylum housing in Norway (hard to compare directly as the costs given for government provision includes a lot of additional costs, but using basic measures for things like nursery provision etc. it'd be extremely unlikely that the actual housing component ends up above even the lower ($31) of those levels). It may still be an ok deal if the contracts are short term, as there's obvious issues now with forecasting how the refugee stream will be even in the near future, and it's worth quite a bit of money to make someone else shoulder most of that risk. > the sad part is that some government officials apparently think profit making in this industry is wrong I haven't seen that. I have seen people question whether some people are profiteering from a difficult situation. This is seen as sort of a national crisis that it would be immoral to take excessive profits from, and there's been others that have e.g. offered up free or significantly discounted hotel rooms and similar (though the cynic in me sees "fantastic high value PR coup" when reading about some of them) that makes it easy to see even relatively modest profit-taking as too high.