Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : THE SLIGHTLY MODERATED BOXING RING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (11353)	5/1/2002 4:13:41 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

"How many people in the US know that they pay tremendously more then the world price for sugar, or know any of the details of the trade spat with Canada over lumber imports?" You can discuss these disgruntlements with someone else. I was only discussing with you the productiveness of public employees versus private. "Also outcome is not the only factor" Yes, OUTCOME (in the context in which I stated it) is the only factor. When people are receiving the service for which they are paying (let us say crime-free streets, for example), they don't care much about the internal wherefores and why. "The choice is not an illusion" I said the choice was essentially an illusion. You are going to a great deal of trouble not to get very simple and unencumbered ideas. If I said that your not paying for universal public services, which you benefit from, was essentially an illusion, it would be true. You could leave the country, but you have family here, you like the place, etc. "I am not attacking the character of public sector employees" You are if you think they are less productive employees than private sector employees. I have shown you over several posts how misguided and erroneous that idea is. "It matters a lot who you work for. Not just government or private, but what agency or what company you work for" There you go again. You knew that my statement referred to the question of productivity--not to the fact that different workplaces sell different services, and do different jobs. All jobs recruit employees with varied capacities for meeting the specific types of production required by the various employers. This discrepancy in job-specific "usefulness" is reflected in the pay which compensates particular levels of competence, skill, education, and ability within the economic paradigm of supply and demand. The law of supply and demand works for both public and private sector employees, although private employers are notorious for protecting the bottom line by limping through with a cheaper employee product. But you get what you pay for, and underqualified personnel do no favours to a company. It all comes out in the wash. Many private companies meet their end because they were not useful or productive. Public agencies are sometimes ill conceived, also, and when they do not eventuate an outcome desirable to the public they are shut down. "The government is riddled with them" This is patently false. If the public agency does not produce the outcome that the service recipients desire, pressure will be brought to make the service more efficient. The public demands outcome. For instance, if an agency is empowered for the protection of children of abusive parents, and subsequently does not produce an outcome satisfactory to the community, then heads will roll, new guidelines and more productive procedures will ensue. "The people who work in the program and the people who are in charge of them want them to continue, and usually someone benefits from them and the special interest that benefits from the program wants it to continue even if it costs the rest of the country far more then it benefits the special interest." It is irrelevent to our discussion what prejudice, bias, or objection you personally may have against any particular programs. The ones which are universal are decided by common interests--mutual cooperative purposes which trump your own peculiar self interest or dislike. Programs meant to serve only a segment of society (such as say those which pay for a legal defense in support of the presumption of innocence for an accused), are also meant to serve the interests of all of society. It is natural for there to be disagreement over certain issues, but your personal antagonism over a particular role of Government, while perfectly within your right--nevertheless, has nothing to do with your argument that the employees are unproductive. YOU may think they are unproductive becasue you do not like them. Others think they are productive, or they would not be there. And if you knew anything about competition for the public sector you would know that the competitive pressures to produce are often much gtreater than in the private sector. Although, overall...a person hired to the competency of any particular job description (public or private) would obviously be productive to the performance standards which have been set down. "I don't think it is injustice to look at the public sector services and see that a large number of these particular services are of litle value or at least return far less value then their costs" All of these services have a value or they would not be there. The fact that people and parties may have legitimate disagreement about what services they want the government to deliver live apart from any accusation that the employees are unproductive. As you know, most private services and products are used by only a miniscule segment of the population. Out of millions of private companies, most individuals or families probably only find a tiny percentage useful to them personally. I mean who really wants to buy a parachute, and why would I buy a sphygmomanometer? Nonetheless, it does not mean their employees are not productive, even if someone dislikes a particular private concern.