http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42258668/ns/us...new_york_times/

In robo-cop we get police as employees of a corporation instead of city employees. Obviously the source for Lone Star and Knight Errent. We are coming close to that in real life. This is an article about a California town that is elminating almost all their city services including fire fighting and outsourcing them. they expect to save 15-40% on the budget.

Chicago was famous for outsourcing the maintenance and use of alot of city properties and civic functions under Daly

All I have to say is that you get what you pay for quite often.

Of course, Government Graft is a fact of life as well, and that doesn't sit as well to a Corporation. They have a word for that I think?

Embezzlement?

Save the outsourcing on firefighting is going to the county, and not to a private contractor. I think the numbers are bunk.

It's only embezzlement if you get caught.

Not really. They're only outsourcing maintanence jobs to private companies. Fire and Police services will be picked up by the County.

Yeah, but in some countries/counties, it's known and allowed, and maybe even accepted as just a part of doing business.

In Corporations, especially Western Corporations, not so much.

You know, the only service I would NEVER wanted outsourced is the Police. Everything else can be outsourced, but not law enforcement.

I don't trust a company to do a fair job of enforcing the law.

I'd add water, food/drug safety, and electricity to that list.

Outsourcing Telephone services was a major mistake in Canada.

I can see water and food/drug safety because a company could pull a Ford and decide it's cheaper for X number of people to die then to do an action which would cost more money.

Electricity, on the other hand, is already privatized and nothing bad has happened yet.

And yet here in the states private phone companies massively dropped the cost of having a telephone while adding a huge assortment of services. Differant cultures.

Same thing in Brazil. They did dropped the costs of having a telephone, still, few phone companies here do have a service of quality...

The only problem I see in privatizing some public services, are the services where profit should not be its goal.

Electricity, water, public transportation I can see private companies doing a good job to improve its profits.

Police, Fire Fighting, health care... I could see companies deciding not to attend someone or doing their job completely because the cost is greater than the profit.

Different geography. The population density in the US makes running lines to even small towns affordable.

In Canada, not so much, and the Federal Government had to step in legally with a few Provincial providers to provide service to areas when the infrastructure that was built by the Crown Corporations deteriorated. (In one example, a microwave transmitter collapsed in on itself from lack of maintenance and Northern Communities lost practically ALL contact.). As some of these communities do not even have road access, and might have only a nurse at a clinic...

Edit: Sorry, this was a major issue at one of my previous jobs, where I was a filing clerk for the Provincial Health Care System.

Remember Enron?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w...rotests_of_2000


Dunno, in Norway one get shafted by whatever local company one use the lines of as they basically bill you for "line rental". And yes, it is usage based. So no matter what company you find to sell you the electricity cheap, the actual lines providing them to your home is maintained by the local company and they can basically slap whatever sum they want on it. Not likely that some other company will come around and build their own system of lines.

Enron had plenty of shady practices to be blamed for, Faraday, but they also got victimized by a lot of regulatory game playing, the fact of the matter is pure capitalism does not exist anywhere on the planet.

Does "Pure" anything exist?

Edit: OK, other than Pure Stupidity.

Here come the cost over runs...

Privatized infrastructure of any kind is always a mistake.

Enron was a victim of their own greed, not government regulation. They made billions off of California when California privatized their electricity.
Remember rolling black outs? Because Enron had a contract to buy electricity at a set price from companies in California they sold it back to California at double and triple the price they bought it at.
Enron went down because of their own greed, and mismanagement, plane and simple. There is a reason their CEO, CFO, et al were charged fraud and other crimes.
Wait till entire towns are run by corporations in Wisconsin. It will be lovely to loose your democracy to privatization.

OK, ShadowWalker, where in Wisconsin are they privatizing government services? Last thing I heard of in Wisconsin is that they got rid of collective bargaining for state workers (something that should have NEVER been given in the first place) and not privatization of government services.

The law that they passed, and published after a judge told them not to, allows for the governor to dismiss elected officials at the municipal level, and place an individual or corporation in their place to run a town or city.
The person or corporation put in this position is the one given the power to break the contracts with the unions.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/9/naomi...nti_union_bills

IIRC, the judge put a restraining order on the Governer from putting the bill to a vote before a hearing was arranged. This order did not include the legislature, however, which brought the bill to the floor on its own.

Reminds me that Pennsylvania is talking about selling the state owned liquor stores* and have the following expectations:
1) State makes money
2) Employees make more money, none of them lose jobs
3) Liquor prices don't rise

#1 is only true if you look at the short term. In the long term the state loses the yearly revenue from the stores.
#2 and #3 are mutually exclusive, if the private owners expect to make the same (or better) profit than the state does currently.
AND even if #2 and #3 aren't mutually exclusive, why isn't the state raising employee wages?

*Yes, I realize that PA is the only state left in the country that runs the liquor stores. Yes, I realize that the state should be selling anyway. My issue is with the claims they make, not with the policy (personally I couldn't care less who owns the stores).

Virginia also has state-owned liquor stores.