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If given the option for a $2M toilet where "the locals are engaged", and takes 4 years to build, or a $300k toilet which is built in 6 months, which do you thin

If given the option for a $2M toilet where "the locals are engaged", and takes 4 years to build, or a $300k toilet which is built in 6 months, which do you think most people would opt for? The real problem is government is too damn big that it becomes impossible to separate out such concerns from every other aspect of government, and each time government expands, it adds more inefficiencies. A park should be a self-contained enterprise so that it doesn't need outside government spending. If you take for example, Shinjuku Gyoen in Tokyo, you need to pay 100 yen to enter the park. The park gets millions of visitors a year, and the money it takes can easily pay for the upkeep of the park. It could be completely private, but in this particular case it is inherited from the imperial estate and is run by the government. The fee has the additional advantage that it keeps out vandals and thugs - only people who want to enjoy the park will pay for it. Highways in Japan are mostly toll roads too. They're operated as companies with the intent on making profit. Some are privately owned, although most are government owned. The "who will build the roads?" complaint is one of the most common attempts to retort the argument for small government.

JamesBarney 8y ago
> If given the option for a $2M toilet where "the locals are engaged", and takes 4 years to build, or a $300k toilet which is built in 6 months, which do you think most people would opt for? You and I both know this is not the cause of a 86% of expenditures. > The real problem is government is too damn big that it becomes impossible to separate out such concerns from every other aspect of government, and each time government expands, it adds more inefficiencies. Do you mean too damn big by % of gdp? If so we could double the size of social security and not change the costs of infrastructure. Do you mean too damn big by employment? If so during census years infrastructure costs don't change much. If you mean by number of regulations? I think reducing regulations could definitely decrease the cost of infrastructure, but this isn't what most people mean when they talk about the size of government. Texas is a very conservative state with little welfare, not very many services provided by the government, but we have an enormous amount of regulations. An incredible amount of red tape and laws.
- sparkie 8y ago
  > You and I both know this is not the cause of a 86% of expenditures. This is missing my point. The point is that if it were a private development, then they would be sacked and replaced. This isn't some isolated case and many areas of government are similarly ineffective. The problem is that you can't just replace the one area - the government isn't modular enough to fix its individual parts - it's a monolith. When I say the government is too big - it's trying to do too many things, and does most of them badly. Markets are better at selecting for efficiency than a single centralized entity. Each 'ministry' or whatnot should be a distinct entity, and should operate like a for-profit business. If one ministry is performing poorly, it could be replaced with a different company in a free market. The threat that they could lose such a contract would force them to perform. No performance, no job - like the rest of us. To be clear, I'm not for "no government," but for very limited government and little regulation. Governments should not be interfering in markets for instance. Things like environmental regulations are obviously more complex issues which require people to come together for solutions rather than competing. Another example of a more free market is the education system in Sweden. Instead of funding people to go to the nearest public school to them, they give vouchers for education which are redeemable at any school, private or public, and children can choose. There are no restrictions on location. Because private schooling is almost always better than public schooling, this system has caused the public schools to improve out of necessity - they're competing for children to get the funding - in turn the private schools need to innovate to retain their edge. The result is an overall improvement of the entire education of the country, and reduced government spending.
  - JamesBarney 8y ago
    > When I say the government is too big - it's trying to do too many things, and does most of them badly. Markets are better at selecting for efficiency than a single centralized entity. Each 'ministry' or whatnot should be a distinct entity, and should operate like a for-profit business. If one ministry is performing poorly, it could be replaced with a different company in a free market. The threat that they could lose such a contract would force them to perform. No performance, no job - like the rest of us. This is just passing the buck. Right now the government bid out the creation of a bathroom and it was done expensively. But you are arguing that if the government bid out the entire parks system it would be done really well? I don't follow the logic. In my experience the more complex the RFP the more the sophisticated parties(the bidders) are going to fuck the unsophisticated party(the government). It's easy to specify what a bathroom should be and take the lowest bid. It's way harder to do that with the park's department. And not everyone thinks the Swedish model is a success. Lots of people blamed them for causing Sweden to have some of the fastest dropping test scores in the world. And I'm not arguing privatization is always a failure. I'm just arguing that it's not always a success, and that it's success and failure is dependent upon how it's done. I'm not sure why you are so privatization is always a success every time when clearly the historical record says it's a mix of successes and failures. You argue the government should be smaller. 5/6ths of the government is insurance(medicare/medicaid/social security)+military and then 1/6th is everything else. That includes education, protecting the environment, funding research, parks etc.. I would love the government to be smaller, I don't think we need to spend so much on the military but I do like social security, medicare, and medicaid. I don't want to be in the position where I have to decide between mortgaging my house or letting an elderly relative die of cancer. And it's really nice we don't have to make those decisions.

JamesBarney 8y ago

> If given the option for a $2M toilet where "the locals are engaged", and takes 4 years to build, or a $300k toilet which is built in 6 months, which do you think most people would opt for? You and I both know this is not the cause of a 86% of expenditures. > The real problem is government is too damn big that it becomes impossible to separate out such concerns from every other aspect of government, and each time government expands, it adds more inefficiencies. Do you mean too damn big by % of gdp? If so we could double the size of social security and not change the costs of infrastructure. Do you mean too damn big by employment? If so during census years infrastructure costs don't change much. If you mean by number of regulations? I think reducing regulations could definitely decrease the cost of infrastructure, but this isn't what most people mean when they talk about the size of government. Texas is a very conservative state with little welfare, not very many services provided by the government, but we have an enormous amount of regulations. An incredible amount of red tape and laws.

sparkie 8y ago
> You and I both know this is not the cause of a 86% of expenditures. This is missing my point. The point is that if it were a private development, then they would be sacked and replaced. This isn't some isolated case and many areas of government are similarly ineffective. The problem is that you can't just replace the one area - the government isn't modular enough to fix its individual parts - it's a monolith. When I say the government is too big - it's trying to do too many things, and does most of them badly. Markets are better at selecting for efficiency than a single centralized entity. Each 'ministry' or whatnot should be a distinct entity, and should operate like a for-profit business. If one ministry is performing poorly, it could be replaced with a different company in a free market. The threat that they could lose such a contract would force them to perform. No performance, no job - like the rest of us. To be clear, I'm not for "no government," but for very limited government and little regulation. Governments should not be interfering in markets for instance. Things like environmental regulations are obviously more complex issues which require people to come together for solutions rather than competing. Another example of a more free market is the education system in Sweden. Instead of funding people to go to the nearest public school to them, they give vouchers for education which are redeemable at any school, private or public, and children can choose. There are no restrictions on location. Because private schooling is almost always better than public schooling, this system has caused the public schools to improve out of necessity - they're competing for children to get the funding - in turn the private schools need to innovate to retain their edge. The result is an overall improvement of the entire education of the country, and reduced government spending.
- JamesBarney 8y ago
  > When I say the government is too big - it's trying to do too many things, and does most of them badly. Markets are better at selecting for efficiency than a single centralized entity. Each 'ministry' or whatnot should be a distinct entity, and should operate like a for-profit business. If one ministry is performing poorly, it could be replaced with a different company in a free market. The threat that they could lose such a contract would force them to perform. No performance, no job - like the rest of us. This is just passing the buck. Right now the government bid out the creation of a bathroom and it was done expensively. But you are arguing that if the government bid out the entire parks system it would be done really well? I don't follow the logic. In my experience the more complex the RFP the more the sophisticated parties(the bidders) are going to fuck the unsophisticated party(the government). It's easy to specify what a bathroom should be and take the lowest bid. It's way harder to do that with the park's department. And not everyone thinks the Swedish model is a success. Lots of people blamed them for causing Sweden to have some of the fastest dropping test scores in the world. And I'm not arguing privatization is always a failure. I'm just arguing that it's not always a success, and that it's success and failure is dependent upon how it's done. I'm not sure why you are so privatization is always a success every time when clearly the historical record says it's a mix of successes and failures. You argue the government should be smaller. 5/6ths of the government is insurance(medicare/medicaid/social security)+military and then 1/6th is everything else. That includes education, protecting the environment, funding research, parks etc.. I would love the government to be smaller, I don't think we need to spend so much on the military but I do like social security, medicare, and medicaid. I don't want to be in the position where I have to decide between mortgaging my house or letting an elderly relative die of cancer. And it's really nice we don't have to make those decisions.