7 ms·

The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed country. And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country.

The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed country. And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country. It chooses to prioritize the private sector over the public sector. Other countries choose otherwise. Each model has its advantages and disadvantages. This (efficiency of building public transit) is the outcome of the US model.

deleted 9y ago
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jessriedel 9y ago
I don't really see why we should expect any tradeoff between the two. Most efficiency innovations would transfer.
- ucaetano 9y ago
  It isn't about "enfficiency innovations". You always have to make tradeoffs between the collective and the individual, the private and the public. Allowing private companies to extract economic rents from the public is good for the private sector, bad for the public. And vice-versa. Take social expenditures, for example. The US spends 80%-90% of what Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland spend per capita PPP, yet the public services and social welfare in the US are abysmally bad.
  - jessriedel 9y ago
    Economic rents benefit owners of entrenched corporations, but they don't make them more efficient. They also don't explain why US corporate practices make foreign companies more efficient when they are exported. And you haven't addressed the difference in public service efficiency since 10% in scale is not nearly large enough to explain order-unity inefficiencies in the US public sector. (And in absolute terms the US is larger, anyways.)
    - ucaetano 9y ago
      > Economic rents benefit owners of entrenched corporations, but they don't make them more efficient. Efficient at extracting rents and higher profits, yes. > And you haven't addressed the difference in public service efficiency since 10% in scale is not nearly large enough to explain order-unity inefficiencies in the US public sector. (And in absolute terms the US is larger, anyways.) Wait, you do know how good social services are in Germany and Switzerland, and how bad they are in the US, right? If I had to rate social services in DE and CH, I'd give, let's say, an 8 and a 9. Now in the US, well, maybe a 4 if you're lucky. And they cost about the same per capita.
      - jessriedel 9y ago
        Lots wrong with your comment, but in particular note that we are discussing public sectors, not just social services.
        ucaetano 9y ago
        > Lots wrong with your comment Such as? > in particular note that we are discussing public sectors, not just social services Sure, let's discuss government-owned companies. And let's discuss infrastructure investment. And research spending. Oh, education too. Pick one. The US is far less efficient than most of its peers in healthcare spending, government-owned companies, infrastructure investment, military spending, education, taxing, etc. Please, tell me, where is the US government so efficient?
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
> And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country. I'm pretty sure most who live in their own developed country think their own public sector is the most inefficient. Well, maybe not the Swiss.
- Daishiman 9y ago
  Nor the Germans, Danes, Dutch or Scandinavians...
- dpark 9y ago
  I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. My understanding is that the Scandinavian countries generally like their government and its level of efficiency as well.
- ucaetano 9y ago
  The US spends 80%-90% of what Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland spend per capita PPP, yet the public services and social welfare in the US are abysmally bad. > Well, maybe not the Swiss. Yep, reasonably true.
xya3453 9y ago
The US public sector is actually middle of the pack [1]. 1. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/PublicSectorEfficiency.pdf https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/PublicSe...
- nkoren 9y ago
  Dunno about the rest of the metrics, but the relative rankings in "infrastructure outcomes" seem deeply off-kilter, based on my own experience (I work in infrastructure planning and have spent time in most of those countries). Would really like to see that measurement explained.
- ucaetano 9y ago
  The US spends 80%-90% of what Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland spend per capita PPP, yet the public services and social welfare in the US are abysmally bad. Here's one issue with your source: > The United States is one of the most efficient countries because no other country achieves its level of public sector performance with less government spending. This is an unfair comparison, since public spending in other countries include national health systems, national pension systems, etc. A fair comparison would be the US vs. other countries including only the same expenditures as the US. The indicators also seem weird, the US has a higher Education indicator than Germany and Switzerland, a higher infrastructure indicator than Belgium. Also, the study is from 2007, using data up to 2005. Things changed dramatically in the past 10 years. Take a look at all the government shut-downs, etc.
ska 9y ago
The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed country. All you have to do is look at healthcare to realize this is (at least a) questionable assertion. I mean, it's dogmatic to believe so as an American but it's at least worth a proper look at.
- indoordinosaur 9y ago
  I would argue that because healthcare is so regulated its more of a public sector thing. Also, an enormous amount of money going into the healthcare sector comes from public sources (medicare, medicaid, obamacare, etc.) Note: I'm not saying regulation is bad. Just making the point that healthcare is really not a free-market in this country and never has been.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - ska 9y ago
    Almost nothing is a free market - so you have to be careful of the no true Scotsman fallacy.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      No True Scotsman is about moving goalposts within a conversation. Bringing up, say, a lack of transparent pricing for commodity services (x-rays or pregnancy tests, for example) isn't a No True Scotsman fallacy.
      - ska 9y ago
        Ok, it my be pushing it a little bit - but the point is that the US economy is chock full of things like the healthcare system. You can’t easily argue that these are just outliers and the “real” economy is extremely free market. They are, in fact, completely normal parts of how the economy works. Arguing the converse would be precisely the no true Scotsman fallacy.
JustAnotherPat 9y ago
We enter public sector with the expectations of the private one. Every public sector worker 'deserves' to be high middle class, which today is defined as 300k+ income easily, and we strive to have as many public sector workers as possible.
- kasey_junk 9y ago
  Most any definition of upper middle class you find will say that it’s over 100k per family. Important to remember that when comparing SV tech salaries to the rest of the country.
cbayram 9y ago
Few weeks back, while commuting to work the E and M lines weren't running. There were 3-5 MTAs finest per platform exit, hallways instructing riders "The E and the M lines are not running!" I took another route only to find same amount of MTA agents at the other station. You count the number of stations. The overtime paid that day would have gone a long way paying for a decent electronic information boards that rest of the world seems to have. As a taxpayer, this abuse of tax funds infuriates me.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jessriedel 9y ago

I don't really see why we should expect any tradeoff between the two. Most efficiency innovations would transfer.

ucaetano 9y ago
It isn't about "enfficiency innovations". You always have to make tradeoffs between the collective and the individual, the private and the public. Allowing private companies to extract economic rents from the public is good for the private sector, bad for the public. And vice-versa. Take social expenditures, for example. The US spends 80%-90% of what Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland spend per capita PPP, yet the public services and social welfare in the US are abysmally bad.
- jessriedel 9y ago
  Economic rents benefit owners of entrenched corporations, but they don't make them more efficient. They also don't explain why US corporate practices make foreign companies more efficient when they are exported. And you haven't addressed the difference in public service efficiency since 10% in scale is not nearly large enough to explain order-unity inefficiencies in the US public sector. (And in absolute terms the US is larger, anyways.)
  - ucaetano 9y ago
    > Economic rents benefit owners of entrenched corporations, but they don't make them more efficient. Efficient at extracting rents and higher profits, yes. > And you haven't addressed the difference in public service efficiency since 10% in scale is not nearly large enough to explain order-unity inefficiencies in the US public sector. (And in absolute terms the US is larger, anyways.) Wait, you do know how good social services are in Germany and Switzerland, and how bad they are in the US, right? If I had to rate social services in DE and CH, I'd give, let's say, an 8 and a 9. Now in the US, well, maybe a 4 if you're lucky. And they cost about the same per capita.
    - jessriedel 9y ago
      Lots wrong with your comment, but in particular note that we are discussing public sectors, not just social services.
      - ucaetano 9y ago
        > Lots wrong with your comment Such as? > in particular note that we are discussing public sectors, not just social services Sure, let's discuss government-owned companies. And let's discuss infrastructure investment. And research spending. Oh, education too. Pick one. The US is far less efficient than most of its peers in healthcare spending, government-owned companies, infrastructure investment, military spending, education, taxing, etc. Please, tell me, where is the US government so efficient?

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

> And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country. I'm pretty sure most who live in their own developed country think their own public sector is the most inefficient. Well, maybe not the Swiss.

Daishiman 9y ago
Nor the Germans, Danes, Dutch or Scandinavians...
dpark 9y ago
I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. My understanding is that the Scandinavian countries generally like their government and its level of efficiency as well.
ucaetano 9y ago
The US spends 80%-90% of what Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland spend per capita PPP, yet the public services and social welfare in the US are abysmally bad. > Well, maybe not the Swiss. Yep, reasonably true.

xya3453 9y ago

The US public sector is actually middle of the pack [1]. 1. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/PublicSectorEfficiency.pdf https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/PublicSe...

nkoren 9y ago
Dunno about the rest of the metrics, but the relative rankings in "infrastructure outcomes" seem deeply off-kilter, based on my own experience (I work in infrastructure planning and have spent time in most of those countries). Would really like to see that measurement explained.
ucaetano 9y ago
The US spends 80%-90% of what Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland spend per capita PPP, yet the public services and social welfare in the US are abysmally bad. Here's one issue with your source: > The United States is one of the most efficient countries because no other country achieves its level of public sector performance with less government spending. This is an unfair comparison, since public spending in other countries include national health systems, national pension systems, etc. A fair comparison would be the US vs. other countries including only the same expenditures as the US. The indicators also seem weird, the US has a higher Education indicator than Germany and Switzerland, a higher infrastructure indicator than Belgium. Also, the study is from 2007, using data up to 2005. Things changed dramatically in the past 10 years. Take a look at all the government shut-downs, etc.

ska 9y ago

The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed country. All you have to do is look at healthcare to realize this is (at least a) questionable assertion. I mean, it's dogmatic to believe so as an American but it's at least worth a proper look at.

indoordinosaur 9y ago
I would argue that because healthcare is so regulated its more of a public sector thing. Also, an enormous amount of money going into the healthcare sector comes from public sources (medicare, medicaid, obamacare, etc.) Note: I'm not saying regulation is bad. Just making the point that healthcare is really not a free-market in this country and never has been.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ska 9y ago
  Almost nothing is a free market - so you have to be careful of the no true Scotsman fallacy.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    No True Scotsman is about moving goalposts within a conversation. Bringing up, say, a lack of transparent pricing for commodity services (x-rays or pregnancy tests, for example) isn't a No True Scotsman fallacy.
    - ska 9y ago
      Ok, it my be pushing it a little bit - but the point is that the US economy is chock full of things like the healthcare system. You can’t easily argue that these are just outliers and the “real” economy is extremely free market. They are, in fact, completely normal parts of how the economy works. Arguing the converse would be precisely the no true Scotsman fallacy.

JustAnotherPat 9y ago

We enter public sector with the expectations of the private one. Every public sector worker 'deserves' to be high middle class, which today is defined as 300k+ income easily, and we strive to have as many public sector workers as possible.

kasey_junk 9y ago
Most any definition of upper middle class you find will say that it’s over 100k per family. Important to remember that when comparing SV tech salaries to the rest of the country.

cbayram 9y ago

Few weeks back, while commuting to work the E and M lines weren't running. There were 3-5 MTAs finest per platform exit, hallways instructing riders "The E and the M lines are not running!" I took another route only to find same amount of MTA agents at the other station. You count the number of stations. The overtime paid that day would have gone a long way paying for a decent electronic information boards that rest of the world seems to have. As a taxpayer, this abuse of tax funds infuriates me.