Now your throwing in other things, nothing mentioned so far effects the "environment or certain social norms".
Private Sector vs. Public Sector
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Well check out when German companies wanted to reduce benefits - the major unions receive many benefits that we can only dream of in Canada.
As to 40 K being a high salary - My point was would you pay someone 40 k for a job that can be performed by many people, at a lower salary.
Next - Govt salaries including benefits are higher than found in the private sector.
As to the Military - They sign up for unlimited liability - Yes the Military can be expensive - costs to train are high - would you rather more causalities or better training and equipment for people who put their life on the line?
One thing we ought not to confuse though is competitiveness vs. efficiency. For example, imagine Ford and GM each investing in automotive research and keeing their research highly secret. This might make them "competitive" in that they keep their knowledge to themselves so as to have an edge over the other. At the same time though, they may both be creating economic redundancies in that they may both be conducting the same research, or alternatively each may have knowledge that could help the other, but by keeing it secret, they each hurt the other. In such a case, cooperation may bring about far more efficiency than competition.
Similar can be said for advertizing. In the face of heavy competition, each company might feel the pressure to advertize more than it would like, so as to keep up with the Joneses. This again is where cooperation between companies would be more efficient than competition.
Competition can be quite expensive. We do need to abandon this mantra that competition is so good, or mistakenly believe that somehow competition is synonimous with efficiency.
Similar can be said for advertizing. In the face of heavy competition, each company might feel the pressure to advertize more than it would like, so as to keep up with the Joneses. This again is where cooperation between companies would be more efficient than competition.
Competition can be quite expensive. We do need to abandon this mantra that competition is so good, or mistakenly believe that somehow competition is synonimous with efficiency.
Your arguments just don't hold up in this case, you want to get through life with discounts and freebies, other people paying for you try it. There are no guarantee's in life, one thing that has been proven though is that the government cannot do it better. Profit is not a sin.
Actually, it's quite the opposite. As a taxpayer, I would be helping to fund certain industries, but thanks for playing.
There are things the government can do better with respect to regulation of the private sector though.
No question about better regulation, but as to the actual operation of a company no. Create what ever regulations needed, it will be up to the company to follow those regulations if they want to operate in that country. Another thing I do not like is a individual State or Province setting their own regulations. Federal should be the only ones a company has to follow.
I agree in principle; but when we're talking certain transnational industries such as international aviation, international cruising and maritime travel, and international tourism, even varying national radio-communication policies, taxation laws can create all kinds of inefficiencies, expenses and inconveniences in calculating taxes, conforming to multiple regulations, training all staff to be familiar with and conform to the various regulations, etc.
In those industries, ideally you'd have international standards such as enforcing those of the ICAO, not national ones.
Insisting that publicly traded companies or private industry can do a better job is dumb. How about new drugs? A perfect example is findings that drugs for which the intellectual property (IP)has expired on being found to be effective treatments for illnesses that need treatments. Cancer fighting compounds that exist, but will not ever be registered because they can't be patented. An entity still needs to show that the proposed new treatment, in the form of an existing drug, is safe. Clinical trials are expensive. Dosing needs to worked out, pharmacokinetics needs to be satisfactory, the safety profile must satisfy the regulators demands. Lots of money.
Could be done very easily by a public sector group. There is benefit. But there is no benefit to a pharmaceutical if they don't think they can get their investment back plus guaranteed profit from IP.
Could be done very easily by a public sector group. There is benefit. But there is no benefit to a pharmaceutical if they don't think they can get their investment back plus guaranteed profit from IP.
Education and research are two examples of where regulation is useful, and in some cases even direct government funding or obligatory funding of a common research organization by all applicable companies, perhaps with all applicable companies having access to the research or something of the sort.
No, you're not quite grasping the problem here. Before a drug can be marketed and sold to people in non-clinical settings, the drug needs to be approved. That means that someone needs to submit an entire dossier of all the same things that would be required for a novel drug. Sharing research isn't the problem, it's the cost of satisfying the demands of regulators that makes development of promising new treatments from already existing compounds vanishingly improbable.
In that case, it would be in the interest of the public to have a health authority (National Institutes of Health or Health Canada for example) do the leg work. Then manufacturers could sell generic drugs using the safety data from the regulatory approval granted to the health authority who submitted the dossier.
You appears to be missing the points I made.
First, you haven't given me any examples of German companies wanting to reduce benefits or the workers reactions to them.
Second, the benefits German workers get are benefits that all workers should get - everywhere.
Third, $40,000 a year allows workers to enjoy a basic standard of living. They won't starve, but it probably is not enough to properly support a family unless the spouse works as well. If a job is worth hiring someone to perform it is worth paying them a wage they can actually live on. There are far too many people in Canada working for less than $20 an hour who are trying to raise families.
Fourth, raise the private sector wages instead of lowering those in the public sector. Why should someone work for starvation wages just because they work for Walmart?
Finally, I may have missed your point about the military. I thought you were advocating an expansion of Canada's armed forces, something that made little sense to me if you are trying to cut back government spending. Military personnel are chronically underpaid and what I said about other workers applies to them as well.
When it comes to health and safety, there is certainly a role for Health Canada.
One possibility would be for all drug companies to be required to give X percent of their profits to a corporation set up by Health Canada and subject to Health Canada's safety regulations, but otherwise governed by the companies themselves. or perhaps governed by health caanda directly but always in consultation with the industry and consumers and health-related NGOs.
Yeah, that won't work. You'll drive companies out of Canada if you do that. If the need is there, and it's in the interest of the public, there should be no reason why government scientists can't do the work. It's not like they don't have the expertise.
Out of all the industries to avoid privatizing, I would put drug companies on the top of that list.
What's the difference between making the companies pay X% of their profit to such an organization and raising taxes on these companies to pay for it. Comes out to the same thing, no? except that the first option ensures that those companies that benefit from it pay for it rather than have the taxpayer pay for it.
I agree that this will push the cost of medicine up either way.
Sure why not let people buy into government businesses and let the whole country as a whole suffer. Mind you i am for the little companies competing in this country, I am from Saskatchewan and here we have private owned companies competing with Sask tel, so wehy not give people the right to choose. Government owned or private owned.
I work for an "enterpretor" and I feel I am well compensated for my efforts. Our company employes approximabely 20 people, give or take. There is a government dept. that basically does the same type of work as I do, but at a wage that is "considerably" more than what I make. So, how does one determine who is under/over paid?
The difference between where I work and where they work is that I can negotiate my wage with my boss. I don't have to pay union dues and yes, while I don't have a pension plan, he does match our RRSP contributions. When I need time off, I get it - no questions asked but I also work extra to make up for it. I don't need to but I do because I do have family obligations that a lot of people do not.
The last union job I had I needed to justify why I couldn't take my coffee break at 10 a.m. as opposed to 10:15 (it was because I wanted to finish what I was doing). Same with taking time off - justify, justify, justify. So, while I could make more money working for the gov't., I chose not to simply because I have more options. Oh yeah, and if someone is totally "incompetent" they actually get fired!
JMO .
The difference between where I work and where they work is that I can negotiate my wage with my boss. I don't have to pay union dues and yes, while I don't have a pension plan, he does match our RRSP contributions. When I need time off, I get it - no questions asked but I also work extra to make up for it. I don't need to but I do because I do have family obligations that a lot of people do not.
The last union job I had I needed to justify why I couldn't take my coffee break at 10 a.m. as opposed to 10:15 (it was because I wanted to finish what I was doing). Same with taking time off - justify, justify, justify. So, while I could make more money working for the gov't., I chose not to simply because I have more options. Oh yeah, and if someone is totally "incompetent" they actually get fired!
JMO .
Better luck next time... Enjoy your consolation prize and thanks for playing...Actually, it's quite the opposite. As a taxpayer, I would be helping to fund certain industries, but thanks for playing.
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