Pope thinks... Private firefighters derail.

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Pope thinks... Private firefighters derail.

Post by Pappa » Sat Dec 17, 2011 10:41 am

Seth wrote:The ONLY public employees we require are our elected representatives, who should get a salary fixed by a vote of the people.
What about the police and other emergency services? Do you think the police should be provided by private enterprise?

How about the fire service? Should we be taxed to pay for that (whether the service is public or private)?

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Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sat Dec 17, 2011 11:32 am

Svartalf wrote:Remember he wants a "no central government" neo feudal approach. Police, justice, military, and other Regalian functions to be performed by private employees of the local lords
A retro-civilization attitude.
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Ronja » Sat Dec 17, 2011 4:20 pm

Privatizing firefighting is an especially interesting scenario. No private company would likely agree to a flat sum per month or year: after all mere preparedness for firefighting is maybe 20 times less expensive to keep up than actually fighting fires (per time unit, that is). Then again, if you pay extra each time when they actually have to put out a fire, and you are not very careful with how big the extra compensation is and how it is calculated, you are creating an incentive for the company to want *more* fires, not less, to put out. Incentives steer behavior...

The "incentive" model, when the percentage of money coming from putting out fires was too big, has already backfired (literally) in Spain and Portugal, where some of the forest fires during the last ten years have been started by firemen. This we know about the fires where it became clear that they were arson AND the culprit was caught, which is not all fires of course. And this was with county and city fire departments - no profit motive from a commercial company, "just" individual firemen's motive to get the fire response bonuses.
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sat Dec 17, 2011 4:24 pm

"The Gangs of New York" featured "private firefighting" services. :fp:
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Ronja » Sat Dec 17, 2011 4:28 pm

"The Gangs of New York" is a stylistic exaggeration of pretty much everything, including human psychology and (group) behavior. It manages to have a point, though, every now and then - and is a hugely worthy-of-watching movie, though not necessarily "enjoyable" in the traditional sense.
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sat Dec 17, 2011 4:29 pm

Ronja wrote:"The Gangs of New York" is a stylistic exaggeration of pretty much everything, including human psychology and (group) behavior. It manages to have a point, though, every now and then - and is a hugely worthy-of-watching movie, though not necessarily "enjoyable" in the traditional sense.
Point is, reality wasn't that much different. Prof. Morrison had much to say about the context of the movie when I was at Purdue.
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Seth » Sat Dec 17, 2011 4:40 pm

Pappa wrote:
Seth wrote:The ONLY public employees we require are our elected representatives, who should get a salary fixed by a vote of the people.
What about the police and other emergency services? Do you think the police should be provided by private enterprise?
Sure, why not? Better yet, do your own policing.
How about the fire service? Should we be taxed to pay for that (whether the service is public or private)?
Most of America operates with volunteer firefighters often supported by donations. I see no reason why municipalities should not contract with private companies to provide equipment and personnel rather than having them be public employees. Fire is a "common enemy" threat, like war, which justifies government levying taxes to provide service. If a fire starts in your house, it can easily spread to other houses or property, so it's appropriate for you to pay your share of the resources needed to prevent the spread of fire, just like it's reasonable for you to pay your share of protecting the nation against aggressors or paying your share of public health spending to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

But that does NOT mean that those who actually do the work or provide the service must be on the government's payroll. It's far more efficient and cost-effective for government to hire private contractors to provide such services. That's what happens with federal wildfire firefighters for example. Private companies hire, train, equip and supervise wildland firefighters and they bid for contracts with the Forest Service every year to make money fighting forest fires. The same model can be used with rural and urban firefighters equally beneficially.

Doing so allows the government to pick and choose the best contractor at the lowest price to do the job, and it keeps the contractor on his toes providing the very best service, lest the contract be cancelled or not renewed. Competition keeps costs down and the public is not responsible for paying for pensions for contract employees, the contractor is. That feature alone would cut the cost of fire services in most cities by at least half if not more, because some of the biggest deficits cities are facing, which are bankrupting some cities, are the unmanageable gold-plated public pension obligations for fire, police and other public workers.

Privatizing ALL government services and operations immediately relieves the government of those obligations, and thereby the taxpayers from having to support retired public workers getting benefits that far exceed what's normal in the private sector.

And no, Gawdzilla, battling private firefighting companies are not a necessary result of privatizing such services. Nothing prevents the city from REGULATING how adjacent contract fire companies operate to prohibit "poaching" or other such malfeasance. That was New York City's great mistake. They looked at the problem of privately-paid fire companies and came up with exactly the wrong answer to the problem. That's because at the time, Tammany Hall was rife with corruption to begin with, and nobody was interested in creating a cost-effective private contract system, everybody, including the Mayor and Council, just wanted to get as much graft as possible.

The obvious solution was districting, city-issued contracts, and strict regulations on pain of being disbanded on how the companies had to be equipped, trained and managed.

That's eminently possible nowadays, if only the public employee fire and police unions can be broken and eliminated, which should be a priority for the Republicans when they take over Washington next year.
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Seth » Sat Dec 17, 2011 4:43 pm

Svartalf wrote:Remember he wants a "no central government" neo feudal approach. Police, justice, military, and other Regalian functions to be performed by private employees of the local lords
No, not "no central government," and certainly not a "neo feudal approach," merely severely limited, small, and relatively powerless central government, as envisioned by the Founders, combined with strong LOCAL (meaning state) government close to the people being governed and therefore more responsive to their needs and wishes, and few if any public employees on the public payroll, all necessary services to be contracted out to competing private companies by the state.
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Seth » Sat Dec 17, 2011 4:52 pm

Ronja wrote:Privatizing firefighting is an especially interesting scenario. No private company would likely agree to a flat sum per month or year:
Wrong. The vast majority of firefighting companies in the US are essentially private volunteer companies that exist on donations, fees and sometimes special district taxation.
after all mere preparedness for firefighting is maybe 20 times less expensive to keep up than actually fighting fires (per time unit, that is).
Not really. The most expensive part of firefighting is the capital investment in equipment. Once the equipment is in place, it's mostly labor costs, which are fixed, and maintenance. Once you hire a fire company and acquire the equipment, the operating costs are pretty stable, for urban firefighting anyway. Wildfire firefighting is highly unpredictable however and may require vast resources that have to be drawn from other parts of the nation.
Then again, if you pay extra each time when they actually have to put out a fire, and you are not very careful with how big the extra compensation is and how it is calculated, you are creating an incentive for the company to want *more* fires, not less, to put out. Incentives steer behavior...
This is not generally a problem, although it does happen from time to time. Among arsonists, firefighters, particularly volunteer firefighters, are among the top suspects, but it's relatively rare, Hollywood notwithstanding.
The "incentive" model, when the percentage of money coming from putting out fires was too big, has already backfired (literally) in Spain and Portugal, where some of the forest fires during the last ten years have been started by firemen. This we know about the fires where it became clear that they were arson AND the culprit was caught, which is not all fires of course. And this was with county and city fire departments - no profit motive from a commercial company, "just" individual firemen's motive to get the fire response bonuses.
Yup, it does happen. But that has nothing to do with whether or not the firefighter is a public or private employee. If they are paid by the fire, rather than a fixed salary, your incentive motive exists. But nothing requires that a salaried firefighter be paid by THE GOVERNMENT. It's just as easy for a private company to pay the firefighter, and there's no more incentive than with a publicly paid firefighter.

It's not what or how they are paid that matters, it's WHO they are employed by. There should be NO government employees other than soldiers. By making all government services provided by private contractors, the economy is stimulated and the pension obligations do not fall on the public, but rather on the company that hires the employees to do the services the government contracts for.

Huge numbers of wildland firefighters in the US operate under this exact model, and it's quite cost-effective for the government.
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by JimC » Sun Dec 18, 2011 12:24 am

More delusional libertarian crap...
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sun Dec 18, 2011 12:40 am

Muldur wrote:This is what happens when you listen to Republitards and allow vital public services to be put on a "pay as you go" or "subscription" basis rather than fund them with taxes.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/te ... 41763.html

This was NOT an isolated incident. It's happening all over the country.

Shame on us, America...shame...
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Azathoth » Sun Dec 18, 2011 1:11 am

*clink* That looks quite flammable. Have you paid your fire dues this month?
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Seth » Sun Dec 18, 2011 1:26 am

Gawdzilla wrote:
Muldur wrote:This is what happens when you listen to Republitards and allow vital public services to be put on a "pay as you go" or "subscription" basis rather than fund them with taxes.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/te ... 41763.html

This was NOT an isolated incident. It's happening all over the country.

Shame on us, America...shame...
And why should firefighters risk their lives and equipment to save the home of someone who is too cheap to pay their subscription fee? It's not like it was a fortune, it was $75 per year.

The homeowners made a choice, as was their right, and took the risk of fire upon themselves, and should have provided their own equipment for firefighting if they didn't want to pay the local volunteer company to help them out. They didn't, and they suffered the consequences of their miserliness and lack of preparation. I'm fine with that. Nobody was injured or killed, especially not a firefighter.

People get to make choices for themselves, including bad ones. That's called "freedom."

And it IS an isolated incident. Very isolated. It's happened exactly twice that I'm aware of, both times in Obion County, TN. If you're aware of other such incidences, I'd like you to post references...if you didn't just pull that comment out of your ass, which I suspect you did.
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sun Dec 18, 2011 1:26 am

Azathoth wrote:*clink* That looks quite flammable. Have you paid your fire dues this month?
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Re: Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

Post by Seth » Sun Dec 18, 2011 1:28 am

Gawdzilla wrote:
Azathoth wrote:*clink* That looks quite flammable. Have you paid your fire dues this month?
"Nice base you have here. You wouldn't want anything to happen to it, would you?"
That's called "extortion," and the laws are quite up to the task of arresting and prosecuting extortionists and arsonists, so, fail.
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