Is the push towards privitization all it's cracked up to be?

Traitors
I feel that all those companies that outsource and export Ameican jobs are traitors. We should have a Govt. that gives tax breaks to those that stay, not those that do this crap. In fact, punish those that practice any of the things that hurt American labor. It's the fault of the Admin. of previous Govts. and congress, as well the present one.

Kusinich has it right: Get rid of NAFTA and all of it's expansions and the WTO. Put Bi-lateral trade back and make the other countries practice fair labor laws and environmental laws.

Oh...sorry not exactly the same topic. Privatization has hurt America. Biggest example: Enron, Buddies of Dubya and Cheney,that ripped off CA. The money grubbin' thieves want less regulation and more privatization so that they can get money from the very people that rob the people. It's Robin Hood in the reverse.

If you want an indictment of privitization, all one must see is Thatcher's move toward privitization in the seventies and eighties. Three million unemployed. It can have disasterous effects on quality of service and of jobs; the main reason any government would introduce it would be to reduce the number of things that they have to worry about (thus, privitisation cuts down on the number of things for which the government can be blamed.)

Well, here, we privatized everything we could.

result?

Electricity nearly 50% more expensive.

Water - breakdown of the sewerage plant that remained un-fixed (and lied about) for nearly a year - causing a huge smell that engulfed the city because of bad maintenance - AND increased prices. They had to re-hire a bunch of the previous employees to fix it.

Public transport - here, in Adelaide, the private companies have been unable to function at their contracted prices (closely following much of the experience in Great Britain - where private contractors bid their way in at rock-bottom, later demanding higher prices because the services could not be run on what they bid)- in Melbourne, the private company which took over rail walked out of the contract overnight - just like that. It was later discovered they had ordered a bunch of new locomotives - which are nearly ready - for the WRONG GUAGE!!!!

One public hospital was privatised here - (in Adelaide) - the others were to follow. After literally months of compromised work time, due to in-house staff trying to work out how to bid for the contracts (which they would never have won, because the government was saying, privately, that no in-house contracts would be awarded) - the privatised hospital collapsed financially, requiring a huge public bail-out - the managers said (again privately) that running a big teaching hospital was beyond them - though they ran several private ones). The privatisation of health quietly disappeared off the government's agenda...

In Great Britain, the privatisation and fragmentation of the rail service has resulted in a rapid deterioration of the service - in terms of relaibilty and safety.

I could go on and on. Clearly, there would be success stories too.

However, I think certain core services - like health, education, transport should remain in government hands because they ar eso crucial - and because they require a service rather than a profit mentality.

The experience here of privatising such things has been very patchy and costly at times.

Privatization has growing pains but I support it completely. The private sector is almost always more efficient than the public sector.

The anecdotal evidence here can easily be refuted on the same level and frankly say absolutely nothing about privatization except the almost inevitable transitional problems.

If Am Trak is an example, privitization has gone past the growing pains into incomprehensible backward lethargy.

Come up with an example of any privitization of what should be public utilities and show that it is more efficient and isn't costing double, triple and even more to operate.

What makes you think it should cost less to operate? That is a big assumption.

There are ways to get an artificially low price that are not incompatible with privatization.

No assumption -- Enron can open its books and let out all the private information that artificially high prices work...or do they?

Let's see -- what were the advantages of privitization? Tell me -- I really want to know.

Lower prices maybe?

There are definitely private sector horror stories. Thing is, subsidy and privatization are not mutually exclusive. Often the government-run company will be slow to upgrade and when the private company comes in to modernize the increased cost is the only comparison made.

More realism. The bottom line is not completely ignored.

Governments are far more willing to countenance inefficiency and deficit than a private company would.

This doesn't mean it has to be run like a business, just that some basic business concepts (like don't reduce income and raise expenditures recklessly) won't be ignored.

I don't really belive that the bottom line is completely ignored by government any more than the bottom line is concentrated on by corporations. Too often in corporation, it's how much the principals make that is concentrated on -- they could care less what's left over for the stockholder. Anyone government leader not paying attention to waste will find his comeuppance in the next election (or recall, if you will). There's some pretty reckless practices within corporations which is why they are all sweating the new law going into effect regarding disclosure of how much they have been balancing (a euphemism for juggling) the books. If they were all found out, you wouldn't like the result. A meltdown of Capitalism.

Exactly - there is no reason to assume they will be run at a lower price - yet, this is the nonsense that is used to justify privatisation. AND was used to judge the bids - at least here, and, I understand in GB. The results as I understand them in GB I have alluded to (I do not have cites - since this opinion has been picked up in reading a number of different newspaper sources) - perhaps most clearly in the railways. This is likely a stupidity in those who sell privatisation to the masses, not in the process itself - but the damage done here, anecdotal though it may be, has been so great - I have mentioned only a few examples of many (the privatisation of the emergency services' communication system has demonstrably cost lives) - that I would need a lot of convincing of benefits to support it.

Here - great things have happened - like the privatisation of the foster care system - to the lowest bidder (few bids, too, since few agencies could run such a thing). Result? It has collapsed. Because, I think, at a time when the level of pathology and behaviour problems in foster kids is demonstrably increasing (PARTLY due, I think, to vicious cuts in the child welfare system - meaning that early intervention and intervention in emotional abuse and neglect cases has ceased - and that families are only worked with and kids removed when the abuse has been going on for years and is at a level that can no longer be ignored), the support available to foster families was cut dramatically - because it could not be bought at the price that won the contract - and many foster families gave up and left. Also, the expertise formerly available all but disappeared - which is not, of course, a problem endemic to privatisation as such - but to the process used - that WAS a teething problem. The government is now quietly looking at the feasibility of resuming the foster system, while propping up the contractor - since its own skilled people have dispersed and it has not the capacity to resume the system straight away.

One possibly more convincing argument that was used here was privatising risk - ie that the private companies bore the risk, not the government.

Interestingly, that philosophy has been tested here because one of the multi-national electricity companies which partnered in the successful bid for my state's electricity (many more were supposed to come in and compete - but haven't - because our market is too small) went bust. Result? the government has had to put in a lot of money - and may have to put in more - to keep the supply going. This was partly due to an idiotic contract - negotiated because of the blind assumption that private would ALWAYS be best by the previous government (which seems to me at least as demonstrably stupid as the opposite cry - that public will always be best - they both sound just like "four legs good - two legs bad" to me - while I do recognize my own prejudice FOR some things remaining in public hands) - but, in the end, even if the contract had been better negotiated, and they not legally responsible for some of the mess, they would have had to step in nonetheless, to keep the place electrified! So - the result here has been to privatise profit (the public supplier was a cash-cow for the government) while risk has remained public - because it is an essential service. Just as the Victorian government had to pick up the train mess.

Governments can no longer - if they ever could (and I think they were once able to do so more than they can now) ignore the "bottom line" - at least here.

One simple reason, of many, why this is so - most governments borrow money. The economic powers that be award credit ratings - a slip of even a single plus is enough to stuff our state budget up, cos our tax base is so small - so, governments here have to manage their finances to suit the rating agencies - and this means close attention to the bottom line.

Perhaps for countries with a huge tax base this is different. I can speak only for here.

Our smallness, BTW, is another reason why privatisation often seems to be counter-productive here. It is based on the presence of competition, no? Often this does not eventuate - because we are too small to support lots of competing companies for things like public transport, electricity etc. So - we end up with one company having a monopoly - and no government ability to affect its activities, until contract renewal time. Often a decade or more away.

Exactly, like the government created monopoly of the privitized Am Trak. There's inept personnel and managment in government and in corporations -- somehow they survive. It really is how to suceed in business without really trying. Big government and big business are a built on how well one sells the idea. It doesn't seem to matter if the idea stinks and the product is not worth paying for.

Private schools seem to be more efficient and effective than public schools. What would be so wrong with a voucher system?

And you can't get any more inefficient than the Department of Motor Vechiles. Though Time-Warner customer service is a close second. At least Time-Warner's crimes against humanity (because that's what it really is) is reflected in this stock price. How about we privatize the DMV?

Re: Is the push towards privitization all it's cracked up to


So your entire argument against privatization is that we should have 10 people sitting around getting paid, collecting benefits and building pensions (all at taxpayer expense) when a job can be done by a computer? That sounds like the poster-child for government bloat.

The problems with privatization aren't with the concept. It's with the execution and the "all or nothing" mentality that's been used in privatizing.

The idea behind privatizing was never that the government should entirely abandon the function - it was to privatize functions that could be done by non-government personnel and to have government over-sight and regulation. If you look at the projects that have had the most significant problems it's usually because the government abandoned it's entire role and the corporations were allowed to run amuck.

This argument seems way too broad to have any real value.

What specific organizations are we arguing about privatizing? I am not even sure that we all agree what "privatizing" means.

It seems to me that there are certain things that the government does particularly well. There are science programs, for example, that are essential from a social point of view, that simply have too much risk with no gaurantee of profit to be handled by private companies. NASA is an example. I couldn't imagine NASA being a private company.

The most important research in medicine and many other areas are done with government money and regulation by non-profits (I know since I am working for one). I don't know if this is considered private or public, but the government role is integral and necessary.

There are other places where private companies competing in a free market are clearly an advantage. I would say Telecomunications is a good example of this.

But my point is ...

It seems clear to me that privatization is very effective in some cases and very ineffective in others. There is a huge difference in the issues between education and transportation.

To have any rational discussion of "privatization" it seems that we need to discuss a specific organization or industry.

Comcast service is without question much worse than the DMV. I got through a very well-run RMV in Massachusetts last week to renew a registration. They had a modern system where they give you a number and you *sit* in a reasonably comfortable waiting room until your number is flashed on a screen above a registry window. It was fairly painless and only took about 20 minutes.

I won't tell you about my experience with Comcast which was both painful and interminable. The basic problem still hasn't been resolved (and it has been considerably more than 20 minutes).

If Comcast weren't the only way to get high speed internet in my apartment I would be long gone.

I would chose the RMV government "bureaucracy" over Comcast "service" any day.

What's the opposite of "privatize"? Should I try "publicize" my Internet service?