This happens in most European countries as well, I believe?
It works fine as long as the private companies are held accountable for their shit and the high-level planning is done by public offices.
It breaks down when there are no consequences for budget or deadline overruns, or the actual deliverable failing to meet requirements, because obviously private companies are gonna fleece the tax payer.
Well since the privatisation of germanies public transport systems everything went downhill.
We have less lines and lots of late trains. Funny thing is that the private company “Deutsche Bahn” was doing so bad it is now 100%owned by the state but still a “profit orientated” private company that does weird shit in order to fake the numbers.
I’m not a fan of privatisation of existing systems either. Nor a fan of private companies providing public transport, but in Estonia that works because they have to adhere to strict terms.
What I meant was specifically in the context of private companies building infrastructure that’s specced out by the government and will be owned by the government - that it works in Europe.
In the US a large problem is that the private companies can own the infrastructure they build and then deny other companies usage
There is also an example of this happening here in Estonia too - Telia (which acquired Elion) owns way too much of the fiber optic networks, particularly the last mile connections and now you have relatively little competition - if you want an Internet connection at home, depending on where you live, you may only be able to get broadband from Telia.
But at the same time - we also have private companies build our roads and that works fine for us, because the roads still belong to the country and everyone can use them all the same. Our rail network is owned by the government and while there’s only one (state-owned) company running people transport on it, many companies can use it for transportation of goods.
As long as the product is owned by the government it works. You can pay a contractor to build it, maybe even manage it, but you can’t give the infrastructure to the private company that then has a monopoly
I work in a large corporation, I can assure you that the same kind of people in the same proportions in corporations as in governments. You really should not let low resolution ideologies impose their make beliefs on your world.
I used to also, and I understand the issue, but the mega corps will still be more efficient than the government. This brings up the other issue of how the government funds all the tax dollars to large corporations and also props them up with regulatory protections.
It really depends what you mean by “efficient”. But even if you go with “profit maximizer” that’s still an ideological truth that falls apart easily for most human endeavor. Since both organizations are made of the same kind of humans, have the same basic technology and access to resources (when not crippled in some way). When you add on top non monetary social goals, task more complex than “deliver commodity at lowest cost and max profit”, especially if you consider externalities, tgen saying " corporation are more efficient" as a blanket statement for use in all cases by default, it seems to me this is an ideological statement, really, an article of faith more then anything else.
Its not an ideological statement, it is a comment on the structure of the organizations and how they have to work to survive. Corporations need to do things efficiently or they disappear, the reason large companies are able to be so inefficient is that they are propped up by the government. But the big corporations still have to be more efficient than the other giant companies or their business gets taken.
When it comes to the government they can have irrational requirements and ways of doing things, and since they allegedly are beholden only to the voters (who dont have a clue what is happening) then they can be as inefficient as they want. An example that is non monetary is how the police will investigate themselves and find they did nothing wrong, they only have an incentive to protect themselves and their own people.
Basically because every time this happens the burden of debt is passed towards the tax payers. They just built a long toll lane in my city in what was a 2 lane highway. Adding another lane or two would have alleviated traffic immensely. The company that built it owns all profits for approx 50 years. What could have been a 5 lane highway is still two except now you have the option of paying a ridiculous amount of money to not have to deal with the traffic. This is money that could have been spent on improving the city’s other methods of transportation, trains, bicycles, etc.
It doesn’t affect me personally. I ride a motorcycle every day. It’s just painful to see how private interests are almost never in line with what’s best for constituents
I think this is a seperate issue when private corporations build and own roads. I dont know enough about that sort of thing, I was more referring to how the government hires out private companies to create infrastructure instead of having government employees do it.
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This happens in Europe as well.
This happens in most European countries as well, I believe?
It works fine as long as the private companies are held accountable for their shit and the high-level planning is done by public offices.
It breaks down when there are no consequences for budget or deadline overruns, or the actual deliverable failing to meet requirements, because obviously private companies are gonna fleece the tax payer.
Well since the privatisation of germanies public transport systems everything went downhill.
We have less lines and lots of late trains. Funny thing is that the private company “Deutsche Bahn” was doing so bad it is now 100%owned by the state but still a “profit orientated” private company that does weird shit in order to fake the numbers.
I’m not a fan of privatisation of existing systems either. Nor a fan of private companies providing public transport, but in Estonia that works because they have to adhere to strict terms.
What I meant was specifically in the context of private companies building infrastructure that’s specced out by the government and will be owned by the government - that it works in Europe.
In the US a large problem is that the private companies can own the infrastructure they build and then deny other companies usage
There is also an example of this happening here in Estonia too - Telia (which acquired Elion) owns way too much of the fiber optic networks, particularly the last mile connections and now you have relatively little competition - if you want an Internet connection at home, depending on where you live, you may only be able to get broadband from Telia.
But at the same time - we also have private companies build our roads and that works fine for us, because the roads still belong to the country and everyone can use them all the same. Our rail network is owned by the government and while there’s only one (state-owned) company running people transport on it, many companies can use it for transportation of goods.
As long as the product is owned by the government it works. You can pay a contractor to build it, maybe even manage it, but you can’t give the infrastructure to the private company that then has a monopoly
Exactly.
Public money spent = public owns the end result
Should be exactly this simple.
This CAN actually make sense… if done right… which it is often not due to corruption.
Public employees are almost always not the highest quality and tend to be overpaid, why is it bad to have private companies do the work?
I work in a large corporation, I can assure you that the same kind of people in the same proportions in corporations as in governments. You really should not let low resolution ideologies impose their make beliefs on your world.
I used to also, and I understand the issue, but the mega corps will still be more efficient than the government. This brings up the other issue of how the government funds all the tax dollars to large corporations and also props them up with regulatory protections.
It really depends what you mean by “efficient”. But even if you go with “profit maximizer” that’s still an ideological truth that falls apart easily for most human endeavor. Since both organizations are made of the same kind of humans, have the same basic technology and access to resources (when not crippled in some way). When you add on top non monetary social goals, task more complex than “deliver commodity at lowest cost and max profit”, especially if you consider externalities, tgen saying " corporation are more efficient" as a blanket statement for use in all cases by default, it seems to me this is an ideological statement, really, an article of faith more then anything else.
Its not an ideological statement, it is a comment on the structure of the organizations and how they have to work to survive. Corporations need to do things efficiently or they disappear, the reason large companies are able to be so inefficient is that they are propped up by the government. But the big corporations still have to be more efficient than the other giant companies or their business gets taken.
When it comes to the government they can have irrational requirements and ways of doing things, and since they allegedly are beholden only to the voters (who dont have a clue what is happening) then they can be as inefficient as they want. An example that is non monetary is how the police will investigate themselves and find they did nothing wrong, they only have an incentive to protect themselves and their own people.
Basically because every time this happens the burden of debt is passed towards the tax payers. They just built a long toll lane in my city in what was a 2 lane highway. Adding another lane or two would have alleviated traffic immensely. The company that built it owns all profits for approx 50 years. What could have been a 5 lane highway is still two except now you have the option of paying a ridiculous amount of money to not have to deal with the traffic. This is money that could have been spent on improving the city’s other methods of transportation, trains, bicycles, etc.
It doesn’t affect me personally. I ride a motorcycle every day. It’s just painful to see how private interests are almost never in line with what’s best for constituents
This is slightly off topic but adding lanes does not alleviate traffic in the long term at all. The effect diminishes quickly and vanishes after just five years.
To be fair not building literal highways in the city is good result
Doesn’t sound like they avoided adding or widening a highway, just that what they did add is only accessible if you pay a toll.
Oh. That’s bad.
I think this is a seperate issue when private corporations build and own roads. I dont know enough about that sort of thing, I was more referring to how the government hires out private companies to create infrastructure instead of having government employees do it.