June 26, 2012 at 11:07 am
eventually you have to provide a viable service and actually make a profit or you go bankrupt.
Or you need to accept that there are some things which are worth doing but which will never be commercially viable; and others which are best paid for collectively through taxation rather than individually at the point of use.
Government has a miserable track record doing that.
If you look worldwide, you'll find plenty of examples of government or municipal run services which do just fine. You won't find as many as you would have done thirty years ago, though, because many of the successful ones have been sold to private owners who now run them as commercial enterprises, with mixed results for the quality of service provided. Sometimes it works well, sometimes not.
And as you're viewing an HTML based page on the Internet, spare a thought for the government-run bodies which pioneered both.
June 26, 2012 at 11:15 am
archie flockhart (6/26/2012)
eventually you have to provide a viable service and actually make a profit or you go bankrupt.
Or you need to accept that there are some things which are worth doing but which will never be commercially viable; and others which are best paid for collectively through taxation rather than individually at the point of use.
Please provide an example of this... of something the federal government provides me by taxing me that I *need* and could not get from a private entity? Please be specific.
I can only come up with these: Interstate highways (roads and bridges), National security and (local government) police and fire. All the rest is far better accomplished by the private sector.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
June 26, 2012 at 11:24 am
sturner (6/26/2012)
archie flockhart (6/26/2012)
eventually you have to provide a viable service and actually make a profit or you go bankrupt.
Or you need to accept that there are some things which are worth doing but which will never be commercially viable; and others which are best paid for collectively through taxation rather than individually at the point of use.
Please provide an example of this... of something the federal government provides me by taxing me that I *need* and could not get from a private entity? Please be specific.
I can only come up with these: Interstate highways (roads and bridges), National security and (local government) police and fire. All the rest is far better accomplished by the private sector.
sounds like a monty python sketch -
what have the government ever done for us?
well there's the roads and the aqueducts, health and sanitation obviously, and law and order, do you remember what it was like round here before the government came along? But apart from that, what have the government ever done for us?
🙂
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June 26, 2012 at 11:30 am
archie flockhart (6/26/2012) And as you're viewing an HTML based page on the Internet, spare a thought for the government-run bodies which pioneered both.
HTML was developed by Tim Berners-Lee and scientists at CERN. The Internet that we know and enjoy today is largely the result of work that private companies built upon the foundation built by DARPA and university researchers.
Jay Bienvenu | http://bienv.com | http://twitter.com/jbnv
June 26, 2012 at 11:38 am
sturner (6/26/2012)
patrickmcginnis59 (6/26/2012)
Or would all companies simply agree not to pollute?Or do you simply have no opinion on this?
In your mind all companies *must* pollute something in order to make a profit (which you don't seem to like).
If one bad acting company pollutes, and there are no repercussions preventing further polluting by this company, this bad actor then has a competitive advantage. I've spelled this out in my prior post and I notice you specifically do not address this.
I disagree. Most companies are good & responsible entities, that hire people, pay them salaries & benefits pay taxes and in fact, do not *pollute*.
And in the scenario I pointed out, they will be at a competitive disadvantage when competing against the one hypothetical bad actor. Again, I'm pointing out that you have not addressed the free market response to a visibly bad actor. There very well could be an answer here, thats why I'm posting the hypothetical in search of one.
June 26, 2012 at 11:49 am
patrickmcginnis59 (6/26/2012)I'm pointing out that you have not addressed the free market response to a visibly bad actor. There very well could be an answer here, thats why I'm posting the hypothetical in search of one.
Bad public relations, bad press, boycotts, damage to reputation.
Jay Bienvenu | http://bienv.com | http://twitter.com/jbnv
June 26, 2012 at 11:53 am
patrickmcginnis59 (6/26/2012)
And in the scenario I pointed out, they will be at a competitive disadvantage when competing against the one hypothetical bad actor. Again, I'm pointing out that you have not addressed the free market response to a visibly bad actor. There very well could be an answer here, thats why I'm posting the hypothetical in search of one.
Have you ever run a business? Your assertion that any non-government business that is a "good actor" (whatever that means ... maybe they donate $$$ to democrats I guess) is automatically at a competative disadvantage is total BS.
Sheesh... man. Poorly run business go out of business all the time... except the ones that get bailed out by government (big banks, GM, certain "green" energy companies, etc.). If the federal government was not able to print money it would have gone bankrupt a long time ago.
Most people live in a real world not a hypothetical world where government exists.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
June 26, 2012 at 11:58 am
jbnv (6/26/2012)
patrickmcginnis59 (6/26/2012)I'm pointing out that you have not addressed the free market response to a visibly bad actor. There very well could be an answer here, thats why I'm posting the hypothetical in search of one.
Bad public relations, bad press, boycotts, damage to reputation.
Thank you, and well stated sir. History is replete with companies that are no longer around because those very market forces came to bear against their products or poor business decision making.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
June 26, 2012 at 12:00 pm
jbnv (6/26/2012)
patrickmcginnis59 (6/26/2012)I'm pointing out that you have not addressed the free market response to a visibly bad actor. There very well could be an answer here, thats why I'm posting the hypothetical in search of one.
Bad public relations, bad press, boycotts, damage to reputation.
Excellent point!
June 26, 2012 at 1:42 pm
sturner (6/26/2012)
archie flockhart (6/26/2012)
eventually you have to provide a viable service and actually make a profit or you go bankrupt.
Or you need to accept that there are some things which are worth doing but which will never be commercially viable; and others which are best paid for collectively through taxation rather than individually at the point of use.
Please provide an example of this... of something the federal government provides me by taxing me that I *need* and could not get from a private entity? Please be specific.
I can only come up with these: Interstate highways (roads and bridges), National security and (local government) police and fire. All the rest is far better accomplished by the private sector.
Court system designed to protect the rights of minorities against the votes of majorities. That's one of the key functions of government in a republic/democracy, and really can't be done by a private enterprise system.
Another is the break-up of monopoly private enterprises. Yeah, there were a few drawbacks to breaking up AT&T way back when, but the advantages were bigger. Reigning in Microsoft was necessary a few times to prevent them from getting to a point of being a destructive monopoly, and who but the federal government could have done that? And so on.
Related to the interstate system, regulation of airports, air traffic control, customs rules in ports (air/sea/land), right-of-way regulation in multi-state waterways, and related subjects towards regulation of interstate commerce, are necessary. Can't have New York state charging ships heading through the Eyrie Canal towards Chicago a punishing toll while letting ships heading towards Buffalo go through for free, for example. Not if we want to remain "United States" instead of "States at War".
Standardized coinage and rates of exchange are also important. Dollars printed in New Jersey can't be valued differently than dollar-coins stamped in California, if you want a union at all.
Shall I continue? Or just read the Constitution and you'll see a list of the critical services and enforcement needs. It's very finite, though subject to abuse (as any human set of rules is), but it's not just an item or two.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
June 26, 2012 at 1:51 pm
jbnv (6/26/2012)
patrickmcginnis59 (6/26/2012)I'm pointing out that you have not addressed the free market response to a visibly bad actor. There very well could be an answer here, thats why I'm posting the hypothetical in search of one.
Bad public relations, bad press, boycotts, damage to reputation.
Assuming they can't control those. Semi-monopoly media control can bypass a lot of that by shutting up the "free" press.
Sony, for example, got BluRay over HD-DVD, because Sony owns movie studies and news media companies, while Toshiba doesn't. So BluRay got a lot of good PR and positive press, published by companies Sony owns or has significant control over, while Toshiba got negative press and lack of buy-in, from those same companies. And Bill Gates' statement that both technologies were obsolete before they came out because the shift was going to be towards streaming media was ignored by Sony-influenced/controlled media, and thus also didn't create any visible amount of "bad press".
So, we got a marginally higher data capacity on the disks (which is almost never really utilized, or is filled with hours of material that ended up on the cutting room floor for a good reason), for a much higher price, because of a bad actor who could control the "bad public relations", "bad press", and "damage to reputation". Higher priced goods with no real improvement in value, and no negative commercial impact.
Government could have stepped in on that, but didn't. And really didn't need to, because of the factor Gates' correctly pointed out. But no free-market solution was possible in this case. (Things like this are why we have a government right to break up monopolies in the Constitution, in the US. Not sure about what other governments have or don't have in this regard. Whether that right is exercised or not is another question entirely.)
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
June 26, 2012 at 2:17 pm
GSquared (6/26/2012)
Shall I continue? Or just read the Constitution and you'll see a list of the critical services and enforcement needs. It's very finite, though subject to abuse (as any human set of rules is), but it's not just an item or two.
Actually, the Constitution enumerates a very limited list of things that government is chartered to do. It is much more abbreviated than all of the things you just listed. Today though, it sees to have its hands in every aspect of life and commerce and has put taxpayers 16 Trillion in debt as a result. Waste fraud and corruption is rampant. It's just not very efficient at so many things it does and, unfortunately, appears to have to answer to no one.
An entity that must balance its books, make a profit and answer to shareholders is a better environment for in more ways than one. It also leaves the individual the freedom to choose another among other entities that might provide a similar service or product at perhaps a better value.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
June 26, 2012 at 2:20 pm
sturner (6/26/2012)
GSquared (6/26/2012)
Shall I continue? Or just read the Constitution and you'll see a list of the critical services and enforcement needs. It's very finite, though subject to abuse (as any human set of rules is), but it's not just an item or two.Actually, the Constitution enumerates a very limited list of things that government is chartered to do. It is much more abbreviated than all of the things you just listed. Today though, it sees to have its hands in every aspect of life and commerce and has put taxpayers 16 Trillion in debt as a result. Waste fraud and corruption is rampant. It's just not very efficient at so many things it does and, unfortunately, appears to have to answer to no one.
An entity that must balance its books, make a profit and answer to shareholders is a better environment for in more ways than one. It also leaves the individual the freedom to choose another among other entities that might provide a similar service or product at perhaps a better value.
You're correct. Blame that on the reintrepretation of the General Welfare Clause in the Constitution over the the past 80 years or so.
June 27, 2012 at 2:30 am
jbnv (6/26/2012)
archie flockhart (6/26/2012) And as you're viewing an HTML based page on the Internet, spare a thought for the government-run bodies which pioneered both.
HTML was developed by Tim Berners-Lee and scientists at CERN. The Internet that we know and enjoy today is largely the result of work that private companies built upon the foundation built by DARPA and university researchers.
Yes, that's my point. I can't tell whether you think your point contradicts mine, but if you do, you need to take a look at what CERN and DARPA are: agencies run by governments.( and many Universities, outside the USA, are government-run too.)
June 27, 2012 at 2:50 am
sturner (6/26/2012)
patrickmcginnis59 (6/26/2012)
Or would all companies simply agree not to pollute?Or do you simply have no opinion on this?
In your mind all companies *must* pollute something in order to make a profit (which you don't seem to like). I disagree. Most companies are good & responsible entities, that hire people, pay them salaries & benefits pay taxes and in fact, do not *pollute*.
I disagree with your assertions that without government (ie a bunch of self serving politicians) all companies would pollute the planet and we would all die. If you knew how much pollution of the atmosphere occurs when the space shuttle blasts off you would freak out. But that's okay because its the government and its not making a profit.
As you can see I do have an opinion. It just differs from yours.
Dogma. Always research before making such sweeping statements.
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