Competition needed
A recent front page of the Rocky Mountain News asks the $8 million question: “How could so much money vanish without state noticing?”
Is this really a big mystery? I can give you a one-word answer: government. The people who make up the government are not managing money they earned through their own hard work, so they tend not to care.
But doesn’t government, like a business, earn its income by providing various services? No, because government is a monopoly that extracts its income by force, and doesn’t have to worry about losing customers to competition.
What we really need is competitive governments that people can subscribe to like cell phone service.
Bill Jevons, Boulder
Nonsense Mr. Jevons.
Competition does not cure bad practices of this kind.
Oversight, proper procedures, and independant auditing do.
You claim that government workers "are not managing money they earned through their own hard work, so they tend not to care."
Neither do corporate admin workers.
Posted by Bango Skank on May 22, 2007 02:08 PMBango Skank if you will look at were Mr. Jevons is from it will explain a lot. This mans letter to the editor was published because of its "out there" nature.. They put some letters in the paper just for the entertainment value . I call these kinds of nonsence letters "Village Idiot Letters" This is one of them. Nice job Mr. Jevons. I hope your not serious, but then again you are from Boulder.
Posted by Higaba on May 22, 2007 05:46 PMHigaba, I find it interesting that you don't make even a hint of an argument against what I said. I assure you that I am serious. Anyone who wishes to reply should show the common decency to making a serious reply. I assume you are referring to my last sentence when you say it is a nonsense letter. I understand; competitive government is a hard concept to accept. (It took me a long time to come around to that point of view.)
But what about the part before that? I think many or most people would find that part very reasonable. What is your argument for why it's wrong?
At least Bango Skank did make an argument. A short answer is that companies that allow corporate admins to waste or lose money (especially $8 million) won't remain companies for very long (unless it's a Halliburton or Lockheed-Martin, which are practically part of the government). When there is competition, there is an incentive structure that propagates from the real owners down to the workers. This is the very purpose of the "oversight, proper procedures, and independent auditing" that you mentioned. Take a simple example. Suppose you are a multi-millionaire and I'm your financial manager. It's true that I'm not managing my own money. But the moment I start to mismanage your money, I am gone. I am aware of this, so I'm going to act as if I am managing my own money.
In government, it is different. It is a monopoly, and taxpayers are forced to pay up, and they can't fire these guys. Just look at Katrina, or the Iraq War. Disastrous as those are, we are forced to pay and pay and pay, and no one is fired. Even if you don't think competitive government is possible, you should admit that losing $8 million with no one detecting it for so long is much more likely to happen in government.
OK Bill if you want me to reply to the first part of your letter I will. The fact that it took so long befor this thief was found out is unbelieveble. The folks working under her were the first to sound the alarm. But her superviser did not do her job. Now the thief is in jail and her super has been suspended. The thief HAS been fired and her super will most likely lose her job as well. I hope so. That means you comment about not being able to fire these people is wrong. But it all gose to show that Bango is correct in saying oversight, proper procedures and independent auditing is what is needed.
You are correct in saying my post was in reference to your last sentence. Just what the heck is "competitive Governments" . You said "subscribe to like cell phone service". What, I decide which "competitive government I want to live under, pay taxes to and vote for and you decide to do the same with an other 'competitive government" even if we live next door to each other? What, you end up with different cops than me? A different tax rate? You see my point? WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MY NEW FOUND FRIEND FROM BOULDER? Thats why I said "Village Idiot Letter".
Bill,
I think you are looking at this from a systematically biased and substantially misleading perspective.
Your opening assumption is that government can be viewed as a sort of corporation, but just one that has monopoly and doesn’t have a profit motive. This is incorrect in the same way as looking at corporations as a sort of government department that the citizen cannot vote about and in which the motive is to make a profit rather than serve the public good.
Most companies live for less than 40 years, and financial trickery is seldom the reason for failure. In fact financial trickery is endemic and a natural result of the profit motive, just as domain-creep is in government.
Financial practices and auditing principles cut across all kinds of organization whether those are for-profit, non-profit, or governmental, and also whether the practice involves cash, trade, or barter as a means of value exchange transaction.
Your argument is a very popular stance with many conservative groups, but it is nonetheless a mistaken and inaccurate one.
What a great idea! A competition on who can steal the most money from the tax payers.
Do they get a trophy or something?
Perhaps a Gold Medal?
Words of Wisdom: Don't steal the Government hates competition.
Posted by Can I get an AMEN! on May 23, 2007 01:25 PMBango Skank,
I don't understand why you look at government and corporations as being so completely different. Both comprise a group of people cooperating to provide some service that people pay for. A cell phone company provides cell phone service; a government provides protection, judicial services, transportation, insurance (for example, FEMA relief during natural disasters), and charity (welfare). Sure, governments do a lot more different things, but in principle the two are similar. There is voting in both cases; in the case of corporations, shareholders vote.
Both actually do strive to make profits. We don't usually use the term "profit," but if a town is well-managed, the "shareholders", who are also customers (i.e. the residents), come out ahead, and the town tends to expand, compared to a town that is mismanaged or corrupt. It's the same with companies; well-run ones earn profits that allow them to expand. Both serve the public good. Corporations don't make a profit and don't stay in business unless they are providing some benefit to the public.
So in terms of what I've mentioned so far, there is not a big difference between the two. But actually, there is a big difference -- governments are compulsory territorial monopolies. Everyone knows that wherever you have a monopoly, service tends to continually deteriorate, and the price you have to pay for this deteriorating service continually rises. And just one part of that is that a monopoly doesn't have as strong an incentive to be careful with its finances. The auditing principles and practices you mentioned absolutely do cut down dramatically on waste and fraud. But the incentive to use and consistently apply these practices is far less in the case of a monopoly and it is in the case of an organization that has to face competition (and can therefore go out of business). That just seems like common sense. Auditing practices don't enforce themselves; they require human vigilance and human action. And these are affected by institutional arrangements. It is really not a distinction between government and corporations; it's a distinction between monopolies and non-monopolies.
This is also why I think if governments were competitive -- and I see no reason why they can't be, except the difficulty of convincing most people that they can be -- they would be much more efficient, responsive, innovative, etc. I'm not saying things would be perfect, just far better than they are today. I'm not sure "government" is the correct term; maybe that term implies monopoly. But I don't care what you call it; I just want to recommend the idea.
One last thought... I don't think I've ever heard any conservative groups proposing this type of idea!