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The battle between "new deal era problem solving" and "market based privatization" is a distraction from the actual reality that government comes up with all th

The battle between "new deal era problem solving" and "market based privatization" is a distraction from the actual reality that government comes up with all the plans, public or public/private, and corruption in both is widespread. The only way we will improve upon the quality of solutions is to have a zero tolerance policy for corrupt officials, regardless of which "side" of this "battle" they claim to be passionate about. Is it any surprise that in a country with significant government corruption such arrangements would also be corrupt? New Deal programs like Social Security have been raided by corrupt politicians, the PBGC is not actuarially sound, most of the military's budget is un-accounted for. This is corruption at the Trillion dollar scale and has nothing to do with the fake ideological war between public sector ideologues and free market ideologues. There are several relevant layers, few of which are exposed to democratic or market pressure/discipline: - Making the determination that a service is necessary - Deciding on the characteristics of the service. - Creating a playing field for private sector participants to compete - Revising the requirements and playing field to keep quality and value high (democratic or market-based) - Creating transparency requirements for firms and government agencies participating in public/private partnerships. - Assessing the outcomes and reconsidering all of the above based on results. In our system, each of these breaks down. I can't think of a single example that has succeeded in all of the above areas. Notably, privatization has been used by officials to avoid transparency requirements in recent wars. Chances are this is a major objective of privatization schemes. Officials from both major political parties have set up privatized email servers recently to avoid transparency/accountability.

r_smart 10y ago
>Creating a playing field for private sector participants to compete I know a guy whose job is to negotiate contracts for supplies used by the Fire Dept. in his municipality (or state, I can't remember). We were on a Skype call once, and he was telling me about a contract he was for a particular thing and how much they paid for it, and I thought: "That seems high". So I took 10 minutes to do a search on it and found another reputable company offering the same good for a little more than half the price. His response was: "Well they should have showed up and bid on the contract." Between his apathy, and the way the law works, there was no interest in going and getting a better deal, or even doing basic market research to use in negotiating the price. I wanted to strangle him. And it's all to do with laws and incentive structure. I'd like to think that in most businesses if you came up with a way to cut in half the cost on an essential item (I think this was the coats and pants they wear when going into a burning building), you would at least get accolades and have a strong case to be made on your performance review. In the public sector, it's all the same.
- undersuit 10y ago
  >Between his apathy Apathy? What if this other company has no interest or capacity to deal in a strict supply contract? And then you complain about negotiating the price in a bidding system? "OK, we accept your bid at this price. Now let's talk about reducing the price." Come on, if you're going to use a personal anecdote to convince people at least have a good one.
  - r_smart 10y ago
    Thank you for reading the story and completely missing the point while proving it. You seem to assume he would respond how you would respond. He didn't. He had never heard of the company because he had never looked. When I told him about it, he didn't care. When I told him they were possibly over paying, he didn't care. It was trivially easy for me to come up with that info and he had never cared to look at it before and he didn't care to use it when I told him about it. He didn't say any of the things you said. He didn't say anything even close to that. He had no intention of negotiating the price with the company then were likely to settle on. He was apathetic. *edit: You also seem to have completely overlooked the part where I said it was a combination of his apathy and the way the law works. The two are coincident. Seeking out companies for contracts is risky business as it can trigger collusion / corruption investigations (according to him).

r_smart 10y ago

>Creating a playing field for private sector participants to compete I know a guy whose job is to negotiate contracts for supplies used by the Fire Dept. in his municipality (or state, I can't remember). We were on a Skype call once, and he was telling me about a contract he was for a particular thing and how much they paid for it, and I thought: "That seems high". So I took 10 minutes to do a search on it and found another reputable company offering the same good for a little more than half the price. His response was: "Well they should have showed up and bid on the contract." Between his apathy, and the way the law works, there was no interest in going and getting a better deal, or even doing basic market research to use in negotiating the price. I wanted to strangle him. And it's all to do with laws and incentive structure. I'd like to think that in most businesses if you came up with a way to cut in half the cost on an essential item (I think this was the coats and pants they wear when going into a burning building), you would at least get accolades and have a strong case to be made on your performance review. In the public sector, it's all the same.

undersuit 10y ago
>Between his apathy Apathy? What if this other company has no interest or capacity to deal in a strict supply contract? And then you complain about negotiating the price in a bidding system? "OK, we accept your bid at this price. Now let's talk about reducing the price." Come on, if you're going to use a personal anecdote to convince people at least have a good one.
- r_smart 10y ago
  Thank you for reading the story and completely missing the point while proving it. You seem to assume he would respond how you would respond. He didn't. He had never heard of the company because he had never looked. When I told him about it, he didn't care. When I told him they were possibly over paying, he didn't care. It was trivially easy for me to come up with that info and he had never cared to look at it before and he didn't care to use it when I told him about it. He didn't say any of the things you said. He didn't say anything even close to that. He had no intention of negotiating the price with the company then were likely to settle on. He was apathetic. *edit: You also seem to have completely overlooked the part where I said it was a combination of his apathy and the way the law works. The two are coincident. Seeking out companies for contracts is risky business as it can trigger collusion / corruption investigations (according to him).