Here, too. When MIL passes on, we'll be dumping the landline in favor of Skype and our cells.
Public sector government vs. private sector government.
- Thread starter Machjo
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But there are different forms of privatization too. I can imagine more complications with many companies all sharing the same landlines!
But what about, for example, gradually transforming them into a consumers' co-op? That way, it could:
1. still be a monopoly, thus eliminating the ridiculous redundancies caused by multiple companies sharing the same landline.
2. still have popular representation in that consumers woud have voting rights on the board of directors, not to mention that the government could still protect non-consumers from it too. This would essentially give two levels of democracy (one in government, and one at the company's board of directores).
Just ideas of course, but just to point out that there could be various ways of privatizing a company.
Who would buy shares in a company that gives its customers voting privileges without buying shares?
In a consumer's co-op system, each consumer could be required to buy a share before he could partake of the services of the company.
Or I suppose alternatively it coud be nationalized over time, but still giving consumers a direct vote on the board of directors like in a consumers' co-op.
Yes, it would be a monopoly, but a democratic one, thus providing some checks and balances.
Yes, it would be a monopoly, but a democratic one, thus providing some checks and balances.
Honestly, I think the consumer's co-op and nationalization are both more or less equally good models for a natural monopoly, though I still lean somewhat in favour of the co-op model.
I doubt if either one would be good in all instances. For basic business, like your butcher, baker and candlestickmaker, I think private enterprize is best, these things can be regulated through the way the consumer wants to spend his money, but I think for matters like child welfare, and environmental issues, there has to be a watch dog and I guess that would mean government intervention, not necessarily every step of the way but enough to provide quality assurance and that no one is profitting contrary to the public good.
I don't see any difference between a consumer coop and a municipally run utility system since everybody needs to be tied to it and they already have a vote. Seems like more duplication to me.
I could agree to that in a system everyone needs such as a municipal system. A phone or internet system is somewhat more optional though.
And in the case let's say of a telecommunications network, it could allow the Board of Directors to solve more problems while freeing the government to focus on other more pressing issues, with the government interfering only to protect non-consumers of the company's services, with the board of directors quite suited to protecting the consumers themselves since they would be elected by the consumers anyway.
On the other hand, there would still be the advantage of giving the board of directors more authority over it owing to their being elected, with the government focussing on more important matters and interfering only when the swer system conflicts withsome other department.
That wouldn't hurt my feelings, minimum wage has caused more problems than they've ever solved.
A better way to protect workers from exploitative or unscrupulous employers would just be to give them voting rights in the company. But in the end, if the company has no money, it has no money, and no amount of minimum wages will change that.
Are we talking about private contractors working for government ministries on a fee for service or private ownership of services? or both?
Having done a fair bit of contract work for highways, forestry and environment ministries I am confidant that private contractors could do the work much cheaper than government union employees and still make a fair profit. Where the problem araises is the sheer volume of paper work they want for no real reason that drags your efficiency down to close to their level.
Having done a fair bit of contract work for highways, forestry and environment ministries I am confidant that private contractors could do the work much cheaper than government union employees and still make a fair profit. Where the problem araises is the sheer volume of paper work they want for no real reason that drags your efficiency down to close to their level.
Not a fair question, M. "the government taxes us with high taxes"........NO one likes "high taxes". How about, the government taxes us and uses......etc. Do you see the bias there??
I"m for the public sector, anyhoo.
I worked for the Ministry of Highways in survey and design for 35 years and our experience with Consultants wasn't too good. Generally speaking project costs were higher and they required too much supervision to get them to adhere to our standards and a lot of them just didn't have the years of expertise that the Department people had. I guess the one advantage is there was no obligation to keep them hired on for longer than they were needed for a specific project. A few of them that were any good quite often ended up employed directly by the Gov.'t anyway.
I can see having a problem with consultants, we all run into that. I was thinking more about working people. The reason being that a contractor does not have to keep staff when there is no work or can do other jobs to keep their crew and equipment busy while government ministries do not have this option. My experience with MoF was a lot of engineers that nobody in industry would want or could afford. Mostly they changed their minds so often that you could not do a job on contract unless it was strictly unit prices or you had to work on hourly.
I doubt that highways could do their maintenance cheaper in house than by contract. Even now they demand far too much irrelevant paper work and have way too much staff to over see it. The other problem the ministries face is that they cannot fire incompetent or lazy staff.
