is it universally agreed that government is inefficient?

[DucatiMonster696]

But they don't make a one size fits all solution. This is why every high school has normal math, honors math, and retard math.

That has nothing to do with catering to how individual people learn. Those divisions are a end result of those who can greatly achieve using the mandated standardize teaching methods vs those who achieve in a moderate manner using those aforementioned methods and those who have not or will not achieve because the system has failed to cater to them.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Once again, you guys fail so hard at reasoning. I didn't say Enron was an example of competition. WTF does that even mean?

That was my bad in misreading your post which I freely admit.

And yet again. So you're suggesting if I point out examples of waste in the private sector, it somehow proves the government is now efficient? No? Then WTF is your point exactly, and what does it have to do with what I said?

So what happened to Enron when its fraud was discovered? Oh that's right they were punished by the markets and they went out business which is what is supposed to happen.

 

[actuarial]

Nice but can you explain to me what they give up in return for this socialize health care system because all these systems have negatives attached to them along with their benefits.

So now because it's government efficiency we need to start looking at the effects of it? Should we not consider the potential effects of unregulated private sector efficiency?

 

[actuarial]

Which is the point of why government is so inefficient because in the end they have to educate "EVERYONE" as they collect taxes to provide this services whether you want it or not and thus are obligated to do so but even government cant cater to the needs of "EVERYONE" efficiently without leveling heavy and debilitating taxes on the rest of society.

Thus this means they are then required to pump out a one size fits all education system that breeds inefficiency that becomes more rampant and inherent with its flaws as you pour more money into act of educating large groups of people.

Which then means these shitty parents and students have no incentive to care for what is being provided because after all "ITS FREE MONEY!!!" to them and there more where that came from right? So standards fall in order to cater to people who don't give a crap and who are insulated from their mistakes and wastefulness. Where a person paying for an education and their children are more apt to give a damn about the costs and consequences of pissing away said education.

This gets back to something I said earlier in the thread - it's how you define efficiency.

If public education went away, and was replaced by a purely tuition based private system, it would certainly be more efficient for a cost per student perspective.

The problem is that from a societal perspective you want the brightest kids to have the best education, not simply the kids with the most money. That's what benefits society as a whole long term.

So looking at an individual the outcome as a function of cost may be greater with a private system. Looking at the impact on society the outcome as a function of cost is greater with public education.

 

[actuarial]

So what happened to Enron when its fraud was discovered? Oh that's right they were punished by the markets and they went out business which is what is supposed to happen.

And no one has been held accountable in the public sector.

Just to be clear: I'm a fan of limited government. I want government to be limited for most things to just regulation. But that doesn't mean there aren't certain things I want government to do. And it doesn't mean there aren't certain things which the government will nearly always do better than the private sector.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

interesting... even the liberals who are pro-govt claim that they are inefficient.
very telling.

 

[QuantumPion]

In most companies profit sharing is a marginal motivator. The fact is that individual employees have so little impact on the bottom line they don't feel a material connection between their actions and the bottom line. In any case, public employees have a similar motivation since they are taxpayers. Any efficiencies they add saves tax dollars, and thus saves them money. Except, of course, once again it's so diluted that it really isn't a significant motivator.

No. Completely 100% backwards. Any efficiencies public employes add makes them lose their own budgets go down and makes them get less money. While large corporations certainly become bureaucritized and inefficient, public employees actually have a vested interest in making things as inefficient as possible. The more inefficient they make things, the more money they get. It's a perverse incentive inherent to government.

 

[Bowfinger]

No. Completely 100% backwards. Any efficiencies public employes add makes them lose their own budgets go down and makes them get less money. While large corporations certainly become bureaucritized and inefficient, public employees actually have a vested interest in making things as inefficient as possible. The more inefficient they make things, the more money they get. It's a perverse incentive inherent to government.

You haven't the foggiest clue what you're talking about.

 

[piasabird]

I consider Government to be a giant pit. There has been no government program where there was no waste. Some programs seem to waste 2/3rds of the money they receive in administration costs.

I never told anyone to give money to sluts and illegal immigrants that keep having government babies. I am married and legal and the government does not give me free money for having children. They do target married people with Taxes and other people with earned income credit. Taxes are so confusing it is really complicated.

Red tape or legislation passed by democratic government keeps making everything more complicated and costly. There is no government program that the democrats can not bend and use with their sick class warfare legislation.

 

[Craig234]

nm

 

[Ninjahedge]

Quantum and Bow... It is actually right in the middle.

As working on government projects in the PRIVATE SECTOR, we tried to hit the proposed budget amount as closely as possible, no matter how fast we did it.

Why? Because if you bugeted $5M for a project, but had NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER and finished it in $3M... Guess what happens next year?

The project will now be offered at $3M. You now have problems with weather or other unusual things (like more damage seen and reported on inspections). But you will NOT get the cash to do it right.

Some of the problems we get are not easily lumped on one system or another. Some are actually due to the interface between them as much as faults with one or the other. Something needs to be done, but most of what I see here will not do it. Too many here are trying to Black hat/White hat the situation.

 

[Nemesis 1]

A wise evil man said let me control a countries money and I control that country . Enter the fed. The Fed is above the law. as are all central banks , These banks want Big government . Creates more jobs and strenghens the hand of central banks and weakens government. They also want government workers to live better than the middle class strengthenong their throat grip . The final nail is entitlement programms to keep the poor from rising to self esteem. War over you lost .

 

[Bowfinger]

Quantum and Bow... It is actually right in the middle.

As working on government projects in the PRIVATE SECTOR, we tried to hit the proposed budget amount as closely as possible, no matter how fast we did it.

Why? Because if you bugeted $5M for a project, but had NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER and finished it in $3M... Guess what happens next year?

The project will now be offered at $3M. You now have problems with weather or other unusual things (like more damage seen and reported on inspections). But you will NOT get the cash to do it right.

Some of the problems we get are not easily lumped on one system or another. Some are actually due to the interface between them as much as faults with one or the other. Something needs to be done, but most of what I see here will not do it. Too many here are trying to Black hat/White hat the situation.

Yes, that's been my point all along. You cannot make simplistic assertions that government is more wasteful (or less wasteful) than the big companies. It depends on many factors and generally varies widely even within the same agency or company. They are never homogeneous entities in my experience.

In short, I'm not claiming for a moment government is never wasteful, or even that it mostly efficient. I'm saying government is often efficient. Similarly, my experience with large corporations is they are more like government than different. They can be efficient -- with good leaders -- and can be as wasteful as the worst government horror stories when run by inept leaders or power-hungry bureaucrats who are more interested in building empires than squeezing out inefficiency.

 

[PrinceofWands]

layers and layers of bureaucracy, excess, unnecessary red tape and waste, isolated from market competition so there's no incentive to operate more efficiently, etc.

is there any argument against this?
enlighten me please.

Tremendous opposition to it. While most would agree that 'unnecessary bureaucracy' is bad, the threshold for defining that will vary from person to person.

There are plenty of studies showing business is just as wasteful, micromanaging, and filled with 'red tape'.

There's fundamental disagreement with the possibility of 'market competition' even existing, never mind rather government isolates from it (or ignorant and simplistic views of incentive that fail to account for human nature, psychology, history, sociology, etc) so of course that's not accepted either.

In short, your warrants are biased and being projected because you lack the ability to step back and accept that others are, and see things, differently.

 

[QuantumPion]

Yes, that's been my point all along. You cannot make simplistic assertions that government is more wasteful (or less wasteful) than the big companies. It depends on many factors and generally varies widely even within the same agency or company. They are never homogeneous entities in my experience.

In short, I'm not claiming for a moment government is never wasteful, or even that it mostly efficient. I'm saying government is often efficient. Similarly, my experience with large corporations is they are more like government than different. They can be efficient -- with good leaders -- and can be as wasteful as the worst government horror stories when run by inept leaders or power-hungry bureaucrats who are more interested in building empires than squeezing out inefficiency.

You're missing a crucial bit here. The private company is inefficient BECAUSE IT IS WORKING ON A GOVERNMENT BUDGET. Ninjahedge precisely demonstrated my point. You can't claim that "both private industry and government are inefficient" by pointing to a private industry working a government contract as an example.

The difference between a corporation and a government is that a corporation is working for a profit, at least at some level. Sure, they get inefficient as they get big, but that incentive is still there. Government doesn't just merely lack a profit motive to make it efficient - it has a motive, a perverse incentive, to be as inefficient as it can.

 

[QuantumPion]

In short, your warrants are biased and being projected because you lack the ability to step and accept that others are, and see things, differently.

That's just Orwellian gold right there. We're wrong because we don't accept you are right. Gotcha. :thumbsup:

 

[PrinceofWands]

That's just Orwellian gold right there. We're wrong because we don't accept you are right. Gotcha. :thumbsup:

Reading comprehension fail much?

I said his inability to accept that other see things differently, not that they're right and he's wrong. In no way could that be construed as you infer. Unless, of course, you suffer the same cognitive dissonance.

 

[QuantumPion]

Reading comprehension fail much?

I said his inability to accept that other see things differently, not that they're right and he's wrong. In no way could that be construed as you infer. Unless, of course, you suffer the same cognitive dissonance.

I know what you said. I was extrapolating to the rational conclusion of your upside down reality logic. You claimed that Blah's statement was biased because he did not take into account your point of view. That is rubbish. Either he is right, or you are right (you are not right). Reality doesn't care about whether your feelings are taken into account.

 

[PrinceofWands]

I know what you said. I was extrapolating to the rational conclusion of your upside down reality logic. You claimed that Blah's statement was biased because he did not take into account your point of view. That is rubbish. Either he is right, or you are right (you are not right). Reality doesn't care about whether your feelings are taken into account.

No, you were projecting your own biases in exactly the same way he was. Absolutely NOTHING that I said could IN ANY WAY be interpreted the way you are. It's entirely out of your own mind.

I said that Blah's statement was biased because he based it upon subjective points, assuming they were decided facts instead of contended theories (which is what they are). I showed that his warrants were NOT universally accepted, thereby answering his initial question in the negative.

His question wasn't 'is government inefficient', it was 'does everyone agree that government is inefficient for these reasons'. If even one person's point of view (on even a single part of his claim) differs then the answer to his question is negative. I showed that MANY differ on ALL of his points, thereby adding support to that stance. I then pointed out where and why he failed in his presumption.

Because you misinterpreted the initial question (and Blah based his presumption upon false warrants) your statement about him or I being right is a false dichotomy.

Not sure why you're even bringing this up, but reality (as you invoke) does not exist meaningfully beyond the individual ability to perceive it. Which is to say, while it may exist it is unknowable beyond individual perception and underlying bias, and therefore invoking it is moot.

 

[Bowfinger]

You're missing a crucial bit here. The private company is inefficient BECAUSE IT IS WORKING ON A GOVERNMENT BUDGET. Ninjahedge precisely demonstrated my point. You can't claim that "both private industry and government are inefficient" by pointing to a private industry working a government contract as an example.

I didn't. Try again. Read all the words.

The difference between a corporation and a government is that a corporation is working for a profit, at least at some level. Sure, they get inefficient as they get big, but that incentive is still there. Government doesn't just merely lack a profit motive to make it efficient - it has a motive, a perverse incentive, to be as inefficient as it can.

Again, you haven't the foggiest clue what you're talking about. Repeating the same dogma over and over doesn't make it magically true.

Several people in this thread, myself included, have explained why your dogma is wrong. I won't bother repeating it for you since you don't seem interested in considering it or addressing it.

 

[Tom]

You're missing a crucial bit here. The private company is inefficient BECAUSE IT IS WORKING ON A GOVERNMENT BUDGET. Ninjahedge precisely demonstrated my point. You can't claim that "both private industry and government are inefficient" by pointing to a private industry working a government contract as an example.

The difference between a corporation and a government is that a corporation is working for a profit, at least at some level. Sure, they get inefficient as they get big, but that incentive is still there. Government doesn't just merely lack a profit motive to make it efficient - it has a motive, a perverse incentive, to be as inefficient as it can.

That same "perverse" incentive exists in private enterprise. Whether it's workers minimizing their efforts, or bosses getting overpaid, or even "profit" itself; all are "inefficient" when looked at from different perspectives. "Profit" is an inefficient expense for anyone who isn't a shareholder.

There are other motivations besides "profit". Did "profit" motivate the taking of Omaha Beach ? The fire and police who ran in to the twin towers ? The FBI agents who are tracking those who would do us harm ?

In fact, profit is not a good way to ensure efficiency at all. At best corporations maximize efficiency as measured for their shareholders; that isn't the same thing as efficiency for the whole society. McDonalds is "efficient" in controlling costs for it's shareholders, but it isn't the most efficient way to deliver food to people, if all you are gonna be concerned with is efficiency.

But of course, efficiency isn't the only thing to consider, in public or private matters.