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When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

nytimes.com

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Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#21

Post by kens »

jzwinck wrote: post #16

In the US a lot of us grew up with the idea that when something really bad was happening you would dial 911 and people would appear very soon to help you. I don't know whether this myth was ever true, but it certainly is not true today. I have called 911 or its equivalent more than a dozen times on three continents. No magic helping people appear within five minutes. Or ten. Usually not twenty either. Sometimes not a…

Complaints about 911 have a long history; I'll point out the 1990 hit rap song "911 is a joke" by Public Enemy. The video seems extremely dated now, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPNK0VspQ0M

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#22

Post by gozur88 »

arcanus wrote: post #2

> A man in the suburban South watched a chimney fire burn his house to the ground as he waited for the fire department, which billed him anyway and then sued him for $15,000 when he did not pay. Is one typically billed when you have the fire department arrive? I thought it was a public good.

Depends on where you live. In some areas you pay for something akin to fire insurance - a yearly fee that covers fire service. You don't have to pay, but the fire department isn't under any obligation to help you if you don't. And if you engage their services on an as-needed basis it's going to be very expensive.

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#23

Post by Trill-I-Am »

humanrebar wrote: post #17
hackuser wrote: post #9

Free market enterprise requires, AFAIK, 'creative destruction' (business failure, freeing resources for new enterprises) and distribution of goods to those who can pay more. Therefore, I don't think it's a good solution when the specifications are that the institution cannot fail (e.g., you can't have the police department go out of business or otherwise fail to provide services), and when its good should be distribu…

So why not fix the problem at the demand side and not the supply side. If people can't afford essential-to-life services, isn't that the problem? While I'm on the subject, centrally planning and allocating the services doesn't really solve the problem of whether it's worth the cost to have one ambulance to serve a town of five people who live in the middle of nowhere. Someone still has to make the decision. We can co…

How do you make people have more money to pay for services?

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#24

Post by rayiner »

The article's focus on the private equity boogeyman is misdirected, for reasons that become apparent if you read far enough:

> Private equity gained new power and responsibility as a direct result of the 2008 crisis. As cities and towns nationwide struggled to pay for basics like public infrastructure and ambulance services, private equity stepped in.

The budgets of state and local governments around the country are tapped out. Often, that's the result of problems that--though exacerbated by the financial collapse--have been in the making for decades.

The relevant question isn't whether private-equity backed police and fire services are better than well-funded public ones.[1] It's whether they're better than the poorly funded or unfunded ones that states and municipalities are able to afford given their budget constraints.

[1] Not only is that not the relevant question--it's one the article does not even answer. Nowhere does it provide any concrete analysis of the performance of private versus public fire or ambulance services.

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#25

Post by gozur88 »

illumin8 wrote: post #12
weisser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is not normal practice in most civilized parts of the US (pretty much anywhere on the east and west coasts) Much of the interior of the US could be described as civilized...

It could be, but get deep into the poor rural south, and prepare to go back in time to a place where electricity is optional, people live in trailers, and poverty is rampant.

So it's okay to attack rural poor people because they're not subsidized as heavily as the urban poor?

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#26

Post by arcticbull »

stevendhansen wrote: post #13
nkrisc wrote: post #6

Privatization sounds great when you can afford your own private services. Otherwise, tough luck, pull on those bootstraps harder.

The only alternatives to privatization I can see are: 1) force the population to collectively pay for these services or 2) force specific individuals to provide these services for free Option 1 is morally questionable and option 2 is a type of slavery, so it seems privatization isnt quite as bad as the alternatives. At least with a privatized service those who wish to opt out, can.

Remind me, how is the collection of taxes to pay for services in the public interest 'morally questionable'? The fire department in particular is such an obvious case because a fire affecting one property can easily spread to the next -- and so on. Is that something you want to happen because the property owner of the first house couldn't afford the fire department? That's morally questionable.

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#27

Post by gozur88 »

louprado wrote: post #8
illumin8 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good question, but many of these rural southern towns are very poor, and governed by conservative ideologues that have privatized all non-mandatory services. These towns are required by federal law to provide school service to children within them, however, anything else like police, fire, and ambulance services are not required. I think it's truly a shame that this has led to predatory practices by private co…

I recall a lecture that proposed the home/fire insurance companies own the fire departments and your policy includes fire department services. In theory it should ensure incentives are aligned but then there is the issue of logistics and scale.

It might not work out as well as you'd expect. Insurance companies are going to run the numbers, and if they make the most money by covering only 95% of the houses and then just paying out the last 5% that's what they'll do.

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#28

Post by jsprogrammer »

gozur88 wrote: post #19
jzwinck wrote: post #16

In the US a lot of us grew up with the idea that when something really bad was happening you would dial 911 and people would appear very soon to help you. I don't know whether this myth was ever true, but it certainly is not true today. I have called 911 or its equivalent more than a dozen times on three continents. No magic helping people appear within five minutes. Or ten. Usually not twenty either. Sometimes not a…

This must be heavily dependent on where you live. I've called 911 three times in California. All three times the fire trucks showed up in less than five minutes.

Yep, came across a man standing in a crosswalk in Berkeley who appeared to be dazed and the people with him asked me to call for an ambulance, explaining that the man had been pushed and hit his head on the street. It was probably within two minutes of my calling 911 that an ambulance had arrived and the man was being treated.

The other time I called 911 from roughly the same location, the call only rang. I hung up after probably 10-20 rings. [I woke up to the building next to my windows engulfed in 15+ foot flames. I setup the call while evacuating, but cancelled it once we began leaving the building. Made it outside and there were already many engines deployed and actively fighting.]

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#29

Post by winstonewert »

gozur88 wrote: post #27
louprado wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall a lecture that proposed the home/fire insurance companies own the fire departments and your policy includes fire department services. In theory it should ensure incentives are aligned but then there is the issue of logistics and scale.

It might not work out as well as you'd expect. Insurance companies are going to run the numbers, and if they make the most money by covering only 95% of the houses and then just paying out the last 5% that's what they'll do.

Is that bad? If it costs the insurance company more to stop the fire then to replace my house, the rational action to take is to let the house burn.

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#30

Post by MichaelGG »

jzwinck wrote: post #16

In the US a lot of us grew up with the idea that when something really bad was happening you would dial 911 and people would appear very soon to help you. I don't know whether this myth was ever true, but it certainly is not true today. I have called 911 or its equivalent more than a dozen times on three continents. No magic helping people appear within five minutes. Or ten. Usually not twenty either. Sometimes not a…

I founded and ran a VoIP 9-1-1 company for a few years. 911 is run and financed at the very local level. There's around 9000 PSAPs (public safety answering points) in the US, most of them have a large amount of leeway in doing their own thing. (Some states have better state-level coordination.)

It's a not-excellently-paid job that is extremely stressful. It's extremely traumatic to hear someone dying, begging you for their life, and not being able to help (if, say, the location info fails and they don't know where they are). Add in low funding, and there can be long waits.

Location info sometimes fails, so it's ALWAYS a good idea to confirm location. In Canada an operator failed to do so, dispatched medical aid to the wrong location, and a kid died.

As to poor response in your experiments, I don't think that accurately represents the situation for everyone. It heavily depends on where you are and how busy they are. Certainly many people get very fast response times. 911 saves a huge amount of lives every year.

I've been in other countries that really don't have 9-1-1. First thing you notice is that every house is a mini-fortress. In Guatemala, I have a 24/7 rotation of guards, at least 4 all time. Because if an attack isn't prevented, there's going to be no helpful response. 911 is an amazing service and the lack of it is acutely noticed.

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