"You can equalize salaries when the people getting paid aren't doing anything that matters."This scales up brilliantly to a lot of public-sector work, as well as monopolies and industries heavily infiltrated by the state, which are public-sector-curious.
I found that the ESPN 2-3 minute highlights of the World Cup games last time around were just about right for me. All five of my boys played in high school and we know the game a bit, but none of us are aware of who is on either team at this point. A name or two might be familiar. I have tried to get interested in the women's team, as the coach is from William and Mary, but even that isn't enough for me. I wish them well, but even I can't get interested.
ReplyDeleteThis scales up brilliantly to a lot of public-sector work....
ReplyDeleteIndeed. We could equalize a potful of public-sector salaries with the private sector by getting rid of [90]% of the public-sector positions and returning those incumbents to the private sector to fend for themselves along with the rest of our unskilled population.
Eric Hines
I would have made twice the salary in the private sector but knew I would do less good. Neither public nor private is monolithic in any field. I would prefer private in theory, but I also know the private firms which tried to do what I was doing for crap wages and stupid bureaucratic rules were themselves mostly idiots and unicorn believers. I was hampered and furious. They were useless. The private sector is not magic, and it's not going to happen at the size of nation we have now anyway.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that the government is often the only player in some systems now, such as psych hospitals, policing, prisons, or parks. We could make the coast Guard private, but it's never going to happen. And given what has happened with highways, private contracting often ends up being the same thing, or worse.
We could make the coast Guard private, but it's never going to happen.
ReplyDeleteYou could, really, given that their main job these days is drug interdiction. Let them sell the drugs they capture to the government at market rates, and you'd have a plethora of privateers wanting the job.
If they also provide volunteer rescue services, well, so do I. We had a wilderness rescue this morning.
Exactly. But it won't happen. Maybe, maybe, in the same way that Fedex and UPS came in to compete with the USPS?
ReplyDeleteI noticed a private rescue boat in the bay the other day. If you get in trouble on the water, you can always call the Coast Guard, but there's a pretty big fine, as well as the certainty that the officers will be going over your boat looking for whatever violations may have contributed to your jam.
ReplyDeleteOr you can call the private guys--not cheap, but maybe a better solution if your situation isn't too desperate and you have good credit. It takes some of the pressure off of whatever core function of the Coast Guard really has to remain a public service.
I like to keep examining public functions to see which parts can reasonably be privatized. It keeps the government on a diet, and it tends to ensure that only people in the worst jams are burdening the public purse for a rescue. That in turn means that more people are staying in touch with the personal costs of their personal choices, which damps down the failure rate overall. The lovely thing about a public service is that it's disinterested and grandly indifferent to either merit or ability to pay on the part of the suffering citizen, but that's also the weak spot: someone's always paying, even if we lose track of who that is and how irritated he's getting about. All those helpful public-spirited workers are drawing a paycheck, which has to be funded from somewhere--if not by choice, then by coercion.