Privatize, privatize, privatize
 

Enron, Worldcom, Exxon Valdez, mine catastrophes, Hewlett-Packard, outrageous big-oil profits and pump prices, and now the fire in North Carolina. Why would anybody in their right mind want to trust the private sector to do the right thing (the right thing meaning having responsiblity beyond lining their pockets with cash)? Would I trust my retirement to the private sector? No fucking way! Would I support relaxing regulations on these greedy bastards? Absolutely not. I'm sure that if we let down on standards, we'll soon have hot and cold running toxic waste in our kitchens. The bright side is that cancer would get us before we felt really upset about the e-coli we'd get from the private sector cutting corners in the spinach plant.

I think Halliburten should run the country. Oh, I forgot; it already does. :eyebrow:

Wow
 

Wow, spexvet, you speak my language.:neutral:

Let's abolish the private sector and let the government do everything.

I can't think of a single thing the private sector does better than the government.

Lining their pockets with cash is what keeps companies going. There are varying levels of corruption of course, but in the private sector, competition keeps things in balance. You can choose from company X, Y, or Z to get your product. If the government is in charge, there is no competition, no balance, nothing BUT corruption. You are told what product you will get, how much you will pay for it, and how much of the rest of your paycheck goes to other people so they can have product without paying for it.

capitalism > socialism. Get over your jealousy of other people's money, and make your own. no offense.

Exactly. So if there's a choice between money and anything else, they'll pick money.Corruption is only a small part of the issue. Insurance companies making complicated rules to minimize payout isn't corruption, it's "good business" and "best practices", and standardized across the industry. That's not to say there isn't corruption, too, but what is corruption? Breaking the government's regulations.And part of the government's job is to make sure that remains true. Capitalism tends toward monopoly. The private sector is important, but it shouldn't be trusted to do the right thing, it should be strongly encouraged via regulations.

If X, Y, and Z are all poluting, or whatever, I wouldn't call it a choice.

A corporation's job is to make money. This isn't a bad thing. Regulations are supposed keep them in check so that the playing field is more even and environmental and social concerns are weighed into the equation. But if GM makes eleventy billion dollars, that means cheaper cars for us. Left to its own devices, the boardroom only cares about the money. But it's not operating in a vacuum. There has to be demand for product, demand for quality, demand for safe and socially conscious manufacturing. It's a symbiotic relationship between "the consumer", society and government, and the company.

I don't buy the idea that we should all have whatever we need funneled to us through the government in exchange for taxes. That unbalances the equation, and leaves you with a Cuba or USSR. Sure, you can have what you need to live, but that's it. If half the people polluting the internet with socialist dogma had their way, they wouldn't be able to afford the computers they rant on.

You could use the library computer, but that's for porn.

No, it doesn't. It doesn't even mean that those who produce those cars will benefit more. It means that the stockholders and executives will get richer

I don't, either. But there is certainly some middle ground, where the environment isn't ruined and public health and wellbeing is maintained. Sure, demand is a factor. If everyone stops buying product X because it's bad for people or the environment, the product goes away, and the problem associated with said product will stop being created. But the problems caused by the product may continue - a chemical byproduct may no lnger be created, but it's mishandling may taint the water supply for years.

IM: Former Rep. Foley, put your hands on the table.;)

My issue, mrnoodle, is that there are people who knowingly do bad things just to make money. This is unacceptable to me.:mad:

Where's TW when ya need him?

Err, the public library's computers are paid for by local taxpayers. Maybe we should privatize libraries and make them like clubs you have to pay to join. That way, only people with money enough could have access to information. It would also solve the problem of all those stinky homeless people hanging out in public libraries.

Private corporations are not run by saints. Just what things that the government now does would you like to see privatized, anyhow?

Education

So the wealthy who can afford the best education get better educated and maintain an advantage over the lower classes, ad infinitum. Yeah, that'll ensure that power/wealth stay in the family. Sounds like an educational feudal system.

That's what happens now, except the government tries to demand that we all lower our standards to its level. It just doesn't have the power to enforce it universally. Yay privatization.

Do you have kids in school?

It's not what you know, it's who you know. Do you really think there are that many strata of education quality? A "good" school has almost nothing to do with the subjects taught and almost everything to do with the other students attending.

Case in point: Yale is in the midst of putting its classes online, available to anyone. Is this because they have some sort of special genius to impart, the answers to the universe, that only those Yale students have been getting all these years? Of course not, their textbooks and lectures are around the same level of any decent state university, if presented a little more liberally. They know that. Will it cause attendance at Yale to plummet? No, because the students of Yale will still be getting what they always got for their money: a passable education, and great connections with like-minded people.

It already is an educational feudal system. Rich districts have better schools. What does it matter if they get to tell the government to butt the hell out about what warning labels they must put on their textbooks?

Well, it IS what happens now, but the government doesn't demand that we lower our standards. Public schools in upper class suburbs are far superior to ones in the ghetto. Its a matter of local funding. I attended a private school in the 8th and 9th grade, and the education it provided was inferior to what was available in the public schools at the time.

And speaking of Yale, private colleges and universities have tuition rates that are through the roof. I went to both the University of Denver (private) and the University of Colorado (public). The big difference was the class size in the lower division courses. But I feel I got an excellent education in my junior and senior years at CU, when I was taking upper division courses in my major and some of my professors were nationally acclaimed. DU was frightfully expensive. I went there only because I got a scholarship. But there are only so many sholarships available. And the reason I transferred from DU was because back then it was the biggest party school in Colorado, and I got sick of it.

When the purpose of a company is to make money, then eventually the company does not make profits and its products are some of the world's worst. The examples are so numerous that only people who believe propaganda, who rationalize using sound byte, would believe that profit myth.

When HP was most profitable, profit was not its objective. Even HP's corporate statement made that fact obvious and blunt. Bill and Dave stories are legendary and define a company driven by its product - serving it customers. GM has no profits because GM will do anything to make profits - including short its pension funds, stifle the 70 HP per liter engine, refuse to even use overhead cam engines 30+ years after the technology was standard, stifle the McPherson struct for 34 years, and pocket $million from the government intended to develop a hybrid.

Current situation from HP goes right back to what I reported here after the Compaq HP merger meeting. (BTW, I always wondered the relationship between Fiorina and Ann Baskins). Pam Dunn is a continuing symtpom of Fiorina, a classic example of what happens when a person has no idea how work gets done and believes the MBA school lie about profits being the purpose.

I have worked in locations where I often thought about tracking down members of the local fire department and tell them to be educated about that chemical. In other locations where people mostly came from where the work gets done (ie California), same safety problems did not exist. Therefore those CA companies were also more profitable.

When the purpose of a company is its profits, well, that was the mentality of that BP executive whose cost control mentality eventually causes massive corrosion of the Alaska pipeline. He was classic of one who lied; thought profits rather than the product were more important.

When profits are more important than product, we also have actions very much common to communism. If your roof is leaking, for a communist organization, then it is not until the government official tells you otherwise. If your roof is leaking in a company so concerned with profits, then it is not until the corporate officers say otherwise. If your roof is leaking in a company concerned about the products, then you have discretion to make the decision and authorize its repair. Nothing new in that story.

The way to make money on any sort of long-term basis is never to cut corners, you end up paying back all your profits to cover the damage you cause. There's no point in saving $100 on something if it costs $300 to fix it in a month. The weakest point of the American business system is that everything depends on short term profits. If a company puts lots of funding into programs that will make them the most competitive in a few years but eats all their profits now, then their stock drops and the banks start screaming. Google the term keiretsu for information on how things work now.

Uh oh, does this mean I'm agreeing with tw? I think I'm gonna pop a few asprin and lie down for awhile...

The wealthy will always have access to the finest education. But, as Clodfobble illustrates, educating the wealthy in no way crowds out the unwealthy from receiving the finest instruction available.

Not only are Yale classes online but MIT has open-sourced its courses as has Cal Berkeley and many other top-tier institutions of higher learning.

My best childhood friend and I grew up in the lower-middle class deep south and graduated from a pitiful excuse of a public school. He, without any connections whatsoever, was granted a full scholarship to Harvard based solely on his academic achievement.

In America, the people that work the hardest get the rewards. It almost never fails that those who object to this are the ones who failed to capitalize (pun intended) on the opportunity that was as available to them as it was to those who passed them by.

There will always be a privileged class. But no nation in the world has made it easier to join that class than America. The job of government and law isn't to punish ambition and reward the lack of it, its to ensure that those who are willing to do what it takes are not held back in any way, shape or form.

It is a well understood principle in development. The last 10% is often where 50% of its value is found. When cost controls get instituted, that last 10% somehow gets eliminated in cost controls. The Pontiac Fiero was one example.

My take on Clodfobbles post was that you really don't necessarily get "the finest education" and I agree with that. What happens is that you pay a huge sum of money to have the name of a prestigious institution on your diploma, and while you are at the school, you get to make connections with others who control wealth. After graduation, it's the good-ole-boy network, where someone hiring (they are in that position already because they or a relative control wealth) hire those with whom they have a connection (made in college). And so the money stays in the same hands, it rarely goes to someone who shows extraordinary talent or results.

Thank goodness for college quotas, eh? This rarely happens.

Or they can put out a poor quality product, and when the problems start, they can fold up and move to the next poor quality product. After all, the owner has made a big salary, so what if the "corporate assets" are taken throught litigation. Or they can lie about the product (Viox, anyone? Pinto?). Or they can beg the government for protection. After all, if company X goes out of business because of the flaw in product Y that kills people, think of all the jobs that will be lost!

My point was both: there's no difference between a "good" education and a "great" education at that level, so there is room for anyone who wants to work for one to get educated. In addition, there will always be "good ol' boys clubs" no matter how level you make the playing field, so for the most part government efforts to do so are wasted.