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The Hidden Cost of Privatization

ineteconomics.org

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Re: The Hidden Cost of Privatization

#51

Post by stale2002 »

rainbowmverse wrote: post #19
pizzetta wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the progress in microprocessors, photolithography, search, education, power generation, drugs discovery, communications, etc., etc., do have a measurable impact on progress of the species. Imagine if tech were stuck where it was in even 1999. So many things possible today would not be possible (due to cost or unavailability).

These things are good, but have so far been applied carelessly and unevenly. This is where my comment about conscientiousness comes in. We need to start asking "For what purpose?" and "Who could this hurt?" more often. Packing more transistors into a CPU and working magic with algorithms to squeeze more out of them is not so good if it goes into a machine intended for surveillance and violating privacy, or to wipe ou…

What are you talking about. Wiping out millions of jobs is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing.

I'd argue that it literally the entire point of technology.

"Destroying jobs" means that those people are freed up to do some else that is valuable and aren't wasting their time doing stuff that isn't worth anything to anybody.

Creating "jobs" is easy. Just implement a tax, and pay a bunch of people to dig holes and fill them up again.

Or do the modern equivalent of that and pay people to mess around with spreadsheets in an office and then throw away the spreadsheet.

At least that method of "job creation" is being honest.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Privatization

#52

Post by cowpig »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #44

Article is a summary of others' thoughts (mostly Keynes) without a clear thesis. Would have been nice to read, say, an analysis of why privatizing air traffic control is a bad idea despite the fact that the tech the gov't uses in that space is super antiquated, which in terms drives a bunch of inefficiencies and safety hazards in that particular sector.

Source? I haven't heard of a single crash in the US in years, despite millions of flights...

Re: The Hidden Cost of Privatization

#53

Post by TerrificTom »

subverter wrote: post #46

The problem in Keynes thinking on "social services" is that it's impossible to gather all of the knowledge necessary to ascertain what those would be. That knowledge is dispersed among ~320m citizens (in the U.S.) who each have particular wants and needs. And even if you could somehow attain that knowledge in one place, the likelihood of finding consensus on how a particular "social service" should be offered is next…

The further those services get pushed down, the less effective they become. With smaller groups to front costs, prices go up and less services are offered.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Privatization

#54

Post by ErikVandeWater »

subverter wrote: post #46

The problem in Keynes thinking on "social services" is that it's impossible to gather all of the knowledge necessary to ascertain what those would be. That knowledge is dispersed among ~320m citizens (in the U.S.) who each have particular wants and needs. And even if you could somehow attain that knowledge in one place, the likelihood of finding consensus on how a particular "social service" should be offered is next…

It would work this way if the supreme court hadn't killed federalism over time by ignoring the 10th ammendment.

People don't really oppose federalism, but national level politicians win elections by promising benefits to interest groups to justify their existence. Promising to sit on your hands will never win an election.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Privatization

#55

Post by TheCoelacanth »

pravda wrote: post #47
yequalsx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting rid of unions will increase income inequality. Just compare for profit higher education with public higher education. The wages/benefits for workers former very much lag those of the latter. Private prisons pay way less too. But the people at the top get outsized pay. The cost savings to taxpayers are not sufficient to justify this inequity.

>Just compare for profit higher education with public higher education. The wages/benefits for workers former very much lag those of the latter. And here appears the Broken Window Fallacy!

What exactly do you think is "broken" when a worker gets higher pay?

In the Broken Window Fallacy story, the total wealth in the system is decreased when the window is destroyed. In this example, no wealth is destroyed, it is just distributed differently. If you believe that wealth has a decreasing marginal utility as you become more wealthy, the more even distribution where the worker is paid more has a higher overall utility even though the total wealth is exactly the same.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Privatization

#56

Post by subverter »

TerrificTom wrote: post #53
subverter wrote: post #46

The problem in Keynes thinking on "social services" is that it's impossible to gather all of the knowledge necessary to ascertain what those would be. That knowledge is dispersed among ~320m citizens (in the U.S.) who each have particular wants and needs. And even if you could somehow attain that knowledge in one place, the likelihood of finding consensus on how a particular "social service" should be offered is next…

The further those services get pushed down, the less effective they become. With smaller groups to front costs, prices go up and less services are offered.

What supports that conclusion? There are lots of services – most actually, even insurance services – that thrive with voluntary participation. And the prices are driven down by lots of different companies competing for those customers.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Privatization

#57

Post by stale2002 »

crdoconnor wrote: post #39
pizzetta wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if unions were strong and IT were unionized. How would you imagine the progress we've seen in information technology? The impact on progress should not be discounted as an externality. Imagine if taxicabs or any livery service of any kind had to have a union member associated with it. Would autonomous cars make the same progress (for example, we can have autonomous subways/trains but they have to be "personne…

>Imagine if unions were strong and IT were unionized. How would you imagine the progress we've seen in information technology? The following would likely happen: * Wages would be higher, tech behemoth profits would be lower. * Vastly more attention would be drawn to some of the worse outsourcing disasters (some of which are currently covered up). * Those egregious IP agreements would be less common. * Employee share…

Oooh how about these ones:

Your pay would be pegged to seniority, not ability to contribute. Better pay your dues, newbie. You don't deserve as much money as I do, solely because of your age.

You wouldn't be allowed to do anything outside your extremely limited job description. That's someone else's job, don't take it away from them! No more wearing many hats.

Unless you literally kill someone, you are immune from being fired. Irregardless if you suck and are holding the team back.

Find a good way to make your job more efficient? Sorry, you can't use that. It is not in your contract. And for that matter, doing things more efficiently means that there is less work to go around! Got to save jobs, by creating useless work!

Don't work too hard. You are making everyone else look bad! The contract says that we are only supposed to solve 1 bug a day.

You'd have to get some sort of union sponsored certification/significant barriers to entry, Because the union does not care about NEW workers. They want to keep them out so that they don't compete on wages with them. No more being a self taught engineer! No more switching to a different part of tech. You need a certification for that.

Collective bargaining means that you won't be able to negotiate on an individual basis. No matter how good at negotiating you are or if you could get 2-3X the pay, or if you think the union contract sucks.

Don't like the union? Too bad! You are forced to join it. Fuck you, you free rider! It doesn't matter if you believe that the union provides significant negatives, is corrupt, is destroying your industry and you shouldn't exist. Free rider! Free rider! Free rider!

Re: The Hidden Cost of Privatization

#58

Post by BoiledCabbage »

subverter wrote: post #46

The problem in Keynes thinking on "social services" is that it's impossible to gather all of the knowledge necessary to ascertain what those would be. That knowledge is dispersed among ~320m citizens (in the U.S.) who each have particular wants and needs. And even if you could somehow attain that knowledge in one place, the likelihood of finding consensus on how a particular "social service" should be offered is next…

Why don't we just let individuals choose if they want to have car insurance? If they want it, they can have it - if they don't, they don't have to.

The same (very good) reason we don't allow that is the reason we don't allow this: a lot of individual decisions have social costs.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Privatization

#59

Post by arcbyte »

subverter wrote: post #46

The problem in Keynes thinking on "social services" is that it's impossible to gather all of the knowledge necessary to ascertain what those would be. That knowledge is dispersed among ~320m citizens (in the U.S.) who each have particular wants and needs. And even if you could somehow attain that knowledge in one place, the likelihood of finding consensus on how a particular "social service" should be offered is next…

> it's impossible to gather all of the knowledge necessary to ascertain what those would be. That knowledge is dispersed among ~320m citizens (in the U.S.)

Enough said. All our problems are caused by trying to fight against this simple fact.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Privatization

#60

Post by arcbyte »

matchbok wrote: post #49
subverter wrote: post #46

The problem in Keynes thinking on "social services" is that it's impossible to gather all of the knowledge necessary to ascertain what those would be. That knowledge is dispersed among ~320m citizens (in the U.S.) who each have particular wants and needs. And even if you could somehow attain that knowledge in one place, the likelihood of finding consensus on how a particular "social service" should be offered is next…

Because if you don't mandate insurance, then the entire system falls apart. Sick people need it, healthy people don't want to pay for it. You need everyone to pay to make it affordable.

If it's cheap enough, everyone will buy it.
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