Civil Servants

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

EMFM should you recommend that you can choose which airports to use or which kind of national defense CR should personally use?

I can choose which airports or airlines to use, and indeed I do. When airport tax becomes prohibitive I will simply move my business to the airport nearby with slightly less airport tax if that makes the overall cost cheaper. National defense is another matter, and obviously some things should be handled by government, but that does not necessarily invalidate my argument.

Paying your taxes has the positive side effect of keeping people alive, which allows those people to make choices in the first place. Of course he could pay only for those he wants to be alive and only those, but he couldn't pay me enough to tell a soldier to go to war naked because someone chose not to pay for his gear.

Which brings me back to my first point that I have to pay those taxes, whereas I can choose from where I acquire food, water, luxuries, and shelter.

[Fisherking]

Well, back to civil servants.

Everyone has this stereotype of the surly person behind the counter who treats you like dirt and won't deal with your problem.

That is a very convenient stereotype for the politicians. It is even true of a very few places...Usually the DMV...

Anyway, the average civil servant is anything but overpaid for the work they do and most of the retirement plans are a shadow of what they once were.

There is waste in government, beyond any doubt! And it to a great extent stems from bureaucracy.

But the biggest part is political patronage and how it is funneled back into the privet sector.

Government is top heavy with administrators and managers who increase costs and the guy at the bottom gets all the blame.

Worthless studies of everything from traffic to how to reduce costs are a major factor in what you pay too.

Government contracts to privet firms cost you an arm and a leg, and but for accounting reasons and high managers’ salaries could be done cheaper by the public sector.

I once worked as a federal employee. In one organization, a workforce of 600 personnel supported a top level management force of 280 managers, not to mention their office staff and equipment.

All those people had to justify their jobs by writing requirements and regulations governing the work being done.

Now when costs are too high, guess who gets eliminated... They find new places for those managers and eliminate the workforce.

They can show a cost savings on paper but what was the service worth...and then they have a privet firm perform the task at only double the cost.

So by all means save your money and privatize...

Except that the reason for civil service is because the privet sector could not be trusted with the quality of work...

[Ironside]

I can choose which airports or airlines to use, and indeed I do. When airport tax becomes prohibitive I will simply move my business to the airport nearby with slightly less airport tax if that makes the overall cost cheaper. National defense is another matter, and obviously some things should be handled by government, but that does not necessarily invalidate my argument.

I should've added that the closest other airport is 130 km away... Or why not 340 km to take another airport.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I should've added that the closest other airport is 130 km away... Or why not 340 km to take another airport.

Take another airline then, the one with the most competitive rates.

[Ironside]

Take another airline then, the one with the most competitive rates.

Not going well here so I rather spell out my point. Airports, roads, rails, sanitation and several other infrastructures are of monopolistic nature due to obvious inefficiency for having multiple systems. Monopoles are by nature not free market, thus not having the benefit of competition.

So the only classical capitalistic driving force is profit, putting a non-regulated road stuck at the mercy of the stock market, who have the attention span of a four year old, the long term planning of a gold fish and the company loyalty of a leaf in a tornado.

Or is goverment regulated/owned, who need employees.

In America we have a saying, "Good enough for government work".

CR

I'm not surprised. It's elementary, my dear Watson, sayings are always built on facts and never at all on perception.

Anyway. If I get you right, the goverment suck out your money and employes stupid people that get payed the highest salaries, while the private sector are stuck with all those smart people who get payed much less.

Wait a minute, doesn't high salaries usually be the recruiment tool for competence?