Sources and Sinks

[Michael Kalus]

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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

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