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Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

foxbusiness.com

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Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#71

Post by big_chungus »

enriquto wrote: post #57
big_chungus wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but should you really be blaming the people who hire the extra private policemen, or the people who decide not to hire more public ones? It seems as though it's more effective to push for more public policemen. The same applies to firemen: it's more productive to push for more public firemen than to blame the people who hire private ones due to a shortage thereof.

Both are to blame. I'm not much of a statist, but if there's something that clearly must be assured by the government by means of taxation it is the police force and the firemen. If there's not enough police or firefighters, taxes must be raised or diverted from elsewhere. Morally, I think that the people who push for private security and firefighters are doing a net damage to society.

I see how hiring policemen and firefighters is not a positive, but don't see how it's a negative.

In other words, a state-provided service is not always perfectly on-time, but if I want to hire some private service with super-fast response time for my twenty million dollar beach-front property, why not? How does me hiring a private fireman _harm_ someone else? If anything, might it not reduce the load on public infrastructure?

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#72

Post by heartbreak »

fooqux wrote: post #27

Interesting- I always thought the cyberpunk future of self-policed corporate-states would be here eventually, but I didn't think firefighters would be privatized in that manner before police.

Wealthy neighborhoods with private security (aka private police) are definitely a thing.

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#73

Post by _visgean »

rayiner wrote: post #64
mothsonasloth wrote: post #49

A: "You have selected Amazon's Prime Fire service" A: "A fire-engine will be dispatched within 20 minutes" --- In another part of the country --- A: "We're sorry we don't provide Prime fire service for your location, please direct your query to the local authorities" Local fire department: "We will try and answer your call as soon as possible, but due to budget cuts from a reduced corporate tax income we have had to…

Corporate tax is a red herring. Across the OECD, it makes up just 9% of tax revenue (just 6% in Sweden and Denmark). The US is about the same (8%). If you want to complain about tax revenue, point to the fact that Americans don’t pay VAT (like everyone in Europe does) on all the cheap crap they buy on Amazon. Or in the case of California, complain about Prop 13 limiting the property taxes people pay on McMansions. (W…

I am looking into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates and i dont see the numbers you mentioned.

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#74

Post by Shivetya »

erfderd wrote: post #70
rayiner wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate tax is a red herring. Across the OECD, it makes up just 9% of tax revenue (just 6% in Sweden and Denmark). The US is about the same (8%). If you want to complain about tax revenue, point to the fact that Americans don’t pay VAT (like everyone in Europe does) on all the cheap crap they buy on Amazon. Or in the case of California, complain about Prop 13 limiting the property taxes people pay on McMansions. (W…

We pay sales tax. What's so special about VAT vs. sales tax? Unless you are arguing for a federal sales tax, which OK sure federal tax is great, except it doesn't pay for local services. Also, now you also have to argue about the regressive nature of sales tax in general.

One is embedded so you do not easily identify just how much all those free services cost you.

embedded taxes benefit the tax man and the easiest to make regressive thereby clawing back much of the money spent on services

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#75

Post by xadhominemx »

ossworkerrights wrote: post #6

Amusing how anyone suggesting burying powerlines underground is immediately pushed back by "it's expensive" know it alls. Wondering if power-cuts like 3rd world countries enjoy are preferable over a slight increase in power supply costs, and wether impotence is more desirable over action bEcAuSe iT's eXpEnSivE.

There’s a big difference between burying distribution lines and transmission lines. It’s transmission lines that have caused the most destructive fires in California and those are indeed too expensive to bury.

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#76

Post by [deleted] »

ossworkerrights wrote: post #6

Amusing how anyone suggesting burying powerlines underground is immediately pushed back by "it's expensive" know it alls. Wondering if power-cuts like 3rd world countries enjoy are preferable over a slight increase in power supply costs, and wether impotence is more desirable over action bEcAuSe iT's eXpEnSivE.

[deleted]

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#77

Post by erfderd »

loceng wrote: post #67
rayiner wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate tax is a red herring. Across the OECD, it makes up just 9% of tax revenue (just 6% in Sweden and Denmark). The US is about the same (8%). If you want to complain about tax revenue, point to the fact that Americans don’t pay VAT (like everyone in Europe does) on all the cheap crap they buy on Amazon. Or in the case of California, complain about Prop 13 limiting the property taxes people pay on McMansions. (W…

POTUS candidate Andrew Yang's foundation for his #1 policy/solution is a 10% VAT tax. Edit: Curious why facts are downvoted? Does HN not like discussing solutions and people actively working on solutions?

I'm not against sales tax; there are many benefits to it.

However

A 10% sales tax is a 10% tax on poor people's disposable income since they have almost no savings. How do we square that regressive circle?

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#78

Post by eloff »

supercanuck wrote: post #9
slashdev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got the wrong way of looking at this. The government is unwilling to hire these people, so they're available to private individuals. If the government were winning to fork out tax dollars for private firefighters, there's nothing stopping them from doing so. The great thing about capitalism, for better or worse, but mostly better is that you or any one other person does not get to decide what constitutes effic…

> The government is unwilling to hire these people, so they're available to private individuals. Show me the evidence this is happening.

It's a free market, if the government makes a better offer, they'll go work for the government instead of privately.

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#79

Post by Shivetya »

heartbreak wrote: post #72
fooqux wrote: post #27

Interesting- I always thought the cyberpunk future of self-policed corporate-states would be here eventually, but I didn't think firefighters would be privatized in that manner before police.

Wealthy neighborhoods with private security (aka private police) are definitely a thing.

The private security in wealthy neighborhoods is little different that the security and protected entrances of the condos from the big city.

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#80

Post by eloff »

rvense wrote: post #20
slashdev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got the wrong way of looking at this. The government is unwilling to hire these people, so they're available to private individuals. If the government were winning to fork out tax dollars for private firefighters, there's nothing stopping them from doing so. The great thing about capitalism, for better or worse, but mostly better is that you or any one other person does not get to decide what constitutes effic…

> the market ends up magically having this sort of collective intelligence What if one person had enough resources to pay all firemen to not fight fires at all? The "collective intelligence" of the market has obvious blind spots.

It's not perfect. But it is better than all the alternatives we currently have.

Intelligence does not imply perfection.

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