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Ever heard of toll roads? Yes, those things you drive on and pay for their use. They work quite well in many of the socialist European countries so they ought to work in the land of the free too.
Yes, the way this usually works is that the government builds the road, then sells it to a private company for some money and then the upkeep is handled by the company. It is rather seldom that someone builds a road for a business venture.
Where there is no governmental police force, their is demand for private enforcement. And you know what? They regularly do their jobs better than the police.
Of course there is no oversight body, so if they use "excessive force" well, It's all part of doing business and after all they didn't smash YOUR skull so what do you care, right?
The business though benefits extremly from the infrastructure that is build with taxes. Plus a lot of companies can exempt even more money, so in essence a lot of companies don't pay a dime in taxes.
Show me a company that doesn't pay a dime in taxes, please, make it one that actually has employees and does something useful and makes profit. Amuse me and try it out.
I don't have a link ready right now, but there were several US corporations as well as some in Germany who did NOT pay any taxes for the past couple of years because of either "breaks" they got so not to leave, OR because they posted such high losses that they did not post any profit on the books, thus not pay any taxes.
Alice, an engineer or pharmacist or perhaps a small business owner, works between 40% and 70% of her time to pay money into government.
And how much money does she get back by services? Say: Homelandsecurity? Say: Roadconstruction? etc.?
A lot less than she would have to pay for those services in a free society. This is very easy to determine from the fact that a big part of tax money goes into one social welfare scheme or another.
Assuming right now that you are living in Finland, i am wondering why you not move into the land of the free and do it without any social net?
Take that and in addition remember that goverments tend to do things inefficiently (yes, that road building and security and other stuff tend to cost more than they'd have to) and that he gets a lot of 'services' that have purely negative value to him (say tariffs, drug laws, government help monopolies [AMA is first to come to mind here], etc).
I guess it depends on which study you look. If the Army / Homeland security costs more when run by the government than when run by private firms the US Army should be highly efficent. After all WITHOUT private contractors none of the personell would be fed (that is done by a french catering company), without the likes of Halliburton and such the US Army would not be in Iraq, the support is pretty much "outsourced" for greater "efficency" and "cost saving". Of course companies tend to overcharge quite a huge amount, but hey, I am sure at the end they are still cheaper, right? What you fail to realize is that "you get what you pay for" and why would I want a company cut corners in things like social services, Security (i.e. police) or any other of these services only to save a buck or two? If that is the mentality no wonder companies attach a value to human life and don't really care if you burn up in your car or get killed as long as it is cheaper than to fix a problem. I guess that is also a reason why insurance rates for SUVs aren't up, while smaller cars are getting hit (Want to know why? Because if you die it is a one time payment and the insurance companies are off the hook. If you're just insured though, they pay a lot more to get you "fixed" again. SUVs tend to kill more people than maime them, thus by their logic they are cheaper). But all of you who seem to think that social services et al, should be run on a profit maximiation basis, tell me this: How much are you worth in Dollars and cents (or Euros)? I would like to know how much you think you are worth to your friends, family, kids, spouses etc.? Michael -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBP/a/DmlCnxcrW2uuEQIkXACcC5x0ac8TJ+elTCJThFZlWwMnyQ0AoKkf Vy5kyDyc9Hq/uCDyOCgCUF6Z =e5W6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-- On 3 Jan 2004 at 8:09, Michael Kalus wrote:
Yes, the way this usually works is that the government builds the road, then sells it to a private company for some money and then the upkeep is handled by the company.
It is rather seldom that someone builds a road for a business venture.
Used to happen all the time, before governments became so intrusive. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG r2w6MRt6gtWxRchZBu1JrSIiuDCvgG7FBMjxy3Vx 4tEo5v7x66WtikBVLHafpzaGm84hGQZvHy0qBcgKn
At 01:50 PM 1/3/2004, James A. Donald wrote:
-- On 3 Jan 2004 at 8:09, Michael Kalus wrote:
Yes, the way this usually works is that the government builds the road, then sells it to a private company for some money and then the upkeep is handled by the company.
It is rather seldom that someone builds a road for a business venture.
Used to happen all the time, before governments became so intrusive.
In the U.S. government involvement in road, bridge, railroad and canal building really got its start during the early- to mid-1800s. The Whig Party's platform was called, by Clay, the American System. Today we call it mercantilism. The Whigs pushed their internal improvements agenda (building unneeded and/or grossly overpriced roads, bridges or canals supplied by political contributors) across all the states in the early 1800s. Everywhere it was a disaster bankrupting several. So much so that by 1850 all state constitutions banned internal improvement activities. This was the downfall of the Whigs, but many of its leaders resurfaced in the Republican party whose first presidential candidate was Lincoln. steve
James A. Donald wrote:
-- On 3 Jan 2004 at 8:09, Michael Kalus wrote:
Yes, the way this usually works is that the government builds the road, then sells it to a private company for some money and then the upkeep is handled by the company.
It is rather seldom that someone builds a road for a business venture.
Used to happen all the time, before governments became so intrusive.
Not that often. The usual way of making & fixing roads before the late 19th century was - and had been for centuries - collective. At best some charity or other got people together to help out. At worst the local lord of the manor or big landowner forced a sufficiently large number of peasants to do the job. In lots of places landowners had the duty to maintain roads across their property, and the government would force them to do it. There are lots - many thousands I think - of legal records in England way back to the middle ages A bit different in the western parts of USA if only because so many roads there are new, but even then the vast majority either were started by government (or some other non-commercial organisation) or else taken over by government after built. Canals and railways were mostly built by private business - and mostly came into public ownership when they went broke, often bailing out the failed investors. In both Europe and North America.
On Sat, 2004-01-03 at 07:09, Michael Kalus wrote:
Where there is no governmental police force, their is demand for private enforcement. And you know what? They regularly do their jobs better than the police.
Of course there is no oversight body, so if they use "excessive force" well, It's all part of doing business and after all they didn't smash YOUR skull so what do you care, right?
The only necessary "oversight body" is the courts. Both public and private police (should) operate under the Rule of Law just like everyone else. As with the public police, if private police have public perception problems related to excessive force, abuse of power, or whatever, they may opt to use a third-party interest to do "self-policing" by fining, firing, etc (much like pro sports organizations do... contractually). This is strictly a business management decision however, the only "legal" oversight should be the court. Police (public or private) should be judged and punished (in the legal sense) in the same way any other citizen is.
Show me a company that doesn't pay a dime in taxes, please, make it one that actually has employees and does something useful and makes profit. Amuse me and try it out.
I don't have a link ready right now, but there were several US corporations as well as some in Germany who did NOT pay any taxes for the past couple of years because of either "breaks" they got so not to leave, OR because they posted such high losses that they did not post any profit on the books, thus not pay any taxes.
Purely for the sake of argument, even if this is correct (which I'm not conceding), a company that is truly in business to make a profit by doing something useful (creating a product, providing a useful service, etc) pays employees who pay taxes, pays employee payroll taxes, pays shareholders who pay taxes, and produces something (product or service) which is almost always taxed, usually in several ways. Just because a company does not pay an income tax DOES NOT mean it isn't heavily taxed in other direct and indirect ways.
But all of you who seem to think that social services et al, should be run on a profit maximiation basis, tell me this: How much are you worth in Dollars and cents (or Euros)? I would like to know how much you think you are worth to your friends, family, kids, spouses etc.?
I'm not sure what that's got to do with it. (We're talking about "essential social services" meaning services designed to protect lives, right?) How I value my life is measured by exactly what I will do to protect and enhance my life. I am worth to other people exactly what they would do /voluntarily/ to protect/enhance my life. What that's got to do with whether these services should be privatized or not I'm not sure. Unless you're arguing that (by that definition) I'm not worth very much to very many other people, and since that leaves the responsibility for my life squarely on my own shoulders (and on the shoulders of people I voluntarily engage to start caring about me!). Well, that's the only fair way... coercing other people to care for and by extension pay for my own welfare is immoral and evil. If you care so much for everyone else's welfare, there's plenty of charities you can voluntarily donate your money to that will be happy to look after everyone else. Oh, most people are selfish and wouldn't /voluntarily/ give 30-50% of their money away to total strangers (favoring their own families and close friends instead)? Then please explain how it's moral to FORCE them! (Jeez, I just recently got back onto this list after a several-year hiatus. How the hell did so many statists ever get the idea that ubiquitous cryptography would ever further their goals? Or are they just here to distract us with statism vs liberty type political debates so we can't get any real work done??) --bgt
On Jan 3, 2004, at 3:01 PM, bgt wrote:
(Jeez, I just recently got back onto this list after a several-year hiatus. How the hell did so many statists ever get the idea that ubiquitous cryptography would ever further their goals? Or are they just here to distract us with statism vs liberty type political debates so we can't get any real work done??)
Most of those now posting (and maybe most of those subscribed, but I am only speculating) are various eurotrash lefties and anti-globalist activists who decided that "crypto is cool" after their anti-corporate, anti-choice rallies in Seattle, Milano, and other cities shut down by the Yippie marches and barricades. I assume they figured that since they were using PGP to communicate with their fellow anti-capitalists, that crypto must be cool (I'm not sure if they favor the negro term, "bad," or the traditional term, "good," so I'll use the term of my generation, "cool.") Are they confused? Yep. Welcome to the Gen X and Gen Y (and soon) the Gen Z world. Crypto be bad, dog! This nigga be bouncin'! I'm actually glad to see that Cypherpunks nodes are winding down, that we no longer have monthly meetings, and that the Movement is ending. Better that than to see it hijacked by the eurotrash lefties, New York collectivists, and anti-globalist warriors against free trade. --Tim May, Corralitos, California Quote of the Month: "It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes; perhaps there are no true libertarians in times of terrorist attacks." --Cathy Young, "Reason Magazine," both enemies of liberty.
Tim has become so proprietary about cypherpunks it's strange that he's never operated a node himself, or underwritten all of them in the generous spirit of John Gilmore. Maybe Tim has been underwriting them quietly and that accounts for his obnoxious bitching when the discourse doesn't go the way he wants it -- he being a believer in getting good head for his money, or else, plonk the hoes. Drug dealers work the same model, as do pimps, and bandits, and big-shit right-wing thugs CEOs, none of whom love the urchins who drain their pickles, generate their wealth, instead they yarp the Calvinist creed that economic success equates with superior human value, that if you're not wealthy you're not of much account, rather than admit the evidence that the opposite is most often true, that wealthy people are some of the dumbest people on earth, fountainheads of blather, and got to have obsequious minions -- usually (low) paid, but if not then brainwashed -- on hand at all times to listen to their cantankerous tommyrot fantasies ever-generated to avoid pondering the consequences of their brutish exploitation. Tim repeatedly abandons cyperpunks when one of his spews gets dissed. Goes elsewhere looking for admirers or newbies to pound, and if pounded back, comes back to cypherpunks to plead to ye old tyme succor, parading his past accomplishments to see who'll applaud. Same same same comes out of idlers worldwide, the wealthy ones the most so. But even welfare cheats talk Tim's talk, rather Tim whines like welfare cheats, both sharing contempt for people like themselves, but hoping by blaming others their own shiftlessness will be overlooked. There are wealthy people who don't suffer Tim's conceited warped negativizing narcissism. Some of them have supported cypherpunks with far more than derivative, endlessly recycled opinions and braggardy. True, these goodhearts are the exception among typically vile "successful" assholes, but they save the whole rotten barrel of the rich from getting what it deserves. That is why Tim fears Gilmore's courage, envy.
On Sat, Jan 03, 2004 at 08:09:18AM -0500, Michael Kalus wrote:
Yes, the way this usually works is that the government builds the road, then sells it to a private company for some money and then the upkeep is handled by the company.
It is rather seldom that someone builds a road for a business venture.
Nowadays, yes. But your claim is false: it used to be done frequently. Read Dan Klein's paper on the history of California toll roads. Do your homework before posting. Otherwise you look silly. -Declan
participants (8)
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bgt -
Declan McCullagh -
James A. Donald -
John Young -
ken -
Michael Kalus -
Steve Schear -
Tim May