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Privatisation

13»

Comments

  • #102
    Iwasfrozen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,250 ✭✭✭✭Iwasfrozen


    Karl Stein wrote: »
    Blaming the passengers for crashing the car.
    No it's more like blaming the driver for crashing the car.

    Blaming developers is like blaming the engineers who built the road and blaming the bankers is like blaming the engine that drives the car.


  • #103
    Lenin Skynard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,970 ✭✭✭Lenin Skynard


    Iwasfrozen wrote: »
    No it's more like blaming the driver for crashing the car.

    Blaming developers is like blaming the engineers who built the road and blaming the bankers is like blaming the engine that drives the car.

    I'd say an awful lot of car crashes in this country have been the fault of badly built roads, built as cheaply and as quickly as possible, for the most money offered. But they're the only roads there, there's no choice. You can't just put your hands in your pockets and whistle while smugly saying "well driver, you shouldn't have driven on that road now should you?"

    You're deluding yourself with such a line of thinking.


  • #104
    Iwasfrozen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,250 ✭✭✭✭Iwasfrozen


    Lenin Skynard wrote: »
    I'd say an awful lot of car crashes in this country have been the fault of badly built roads, built as cheaply and as quickly as possible, for the most money offered. But they're the only roads there, there's no choice. You can't just put your hands in your pockets and whistle while smugly saying "well driver, you shouldn't have driven on that road now should you?"

    You're deluding yourself with such a line of thinking.
    You can when the alternative to buying a house is renting a house. ;)


  • #105
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    I think what people really mean is that the banks are still there (apart from Anglo & ILP of course), that bankers haven't lost their cushy jobs (well, except ones like Drumm and the staff of Anglo/ILP), that developers haven't been rendered bankrupt (except the ones that are, obviously), that nobody has gone to court (apart from the ones there at the moment), that the banks' owners haven't suffered (except for the loss of all their shares and stake in the bank), that risk-taking bondholders haven't been burnt (apart, of course, from the risk-taking junior ones), that civil servants haven't suffered (apart from the reductions in salary), that politicians haven't lost their jobs (bar the 50-odd FF & Green TDs who did)...

    ...hmm. Well, that's going to make me unpopular, I suspect. But, really, none of these people have suffered anything like people whose houses aren't worth as much as they bought them for. That's the real tragedy.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • #106
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #107
    Valmont
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,857 ✭✭✭Valmont


    benway wrote: »
    The state and state bodies have legislative and constitutional fetters on their actions, directly enforcable by citizens against them, that can and do influence their conduct. Your statement is really only applicable to private monopolies.
    Could you please explain how these 'legislative and constitutional fetters' ensure that a state monopoly does not abuse its position as the sole provider of a particular service. What is the mechanism of action? How does it alter the motivations of the actors involved?


  • #108
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #109
    kippy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,785 ✭✭✭✭kippy


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    I think what people really mean is that the banks are still there (apart from Anglo & ILP of course), that bankers haven't lost their cushy jobs (well, except ones like Drumm and the staff of Anglo/ILP), that developers haven't been rendered bankrupt (except the ones that are, obviously), that nobody has gone to court (apart from the ones there at the moment), that the banks' owners haven't suffered (except for the loss of all their shares and stake in the bank), that risk-taking bondholders haven't been burnt (apart, of course, from the risk-taking junior ones), that civil servants haven't suffered (apart from the reductions in salary), that politicians haven't lost their jobs (bar the 50-odd FF & Green TDs who did)...

    ...hmm. Well, that's going to make me unpopular, I suspect. But, really, none of these people have suffered anything like people whose houses aren't worth as much as they bought them for. That's the real tragedy.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw

    No Scoflaw the real tragedy is the fact that the next two generations at least will be paying for the largesse and greed of a few. The same few that ultimately will get through the same time period relatively unscathed relative to their overall input into the mess.


  • #110
    Valmont
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,857 ✭✭✭Valmont


    Karl Stein wrote: »
    As I said above for there to anything approaching competition there would be a number of roads running parallel to each other so motorists could choose the best value which, as we both agree, would be absurd.
    There is only one corner shop in my area, would you therefore conclude that the corner shop market is not competitive, with several shops not being lined up in a row? There is nothing stopping a rival competitor opening a new shop or in our previous example, a new road company building a highway alongside an existing one. In this respect the private railroads and highways of yore in the U.S were perfectly competitive but not if we take your simplistic caricature of competition only being achieved if the actors are battling it out in some Wall Street trading floor scenario. In reality business owners in general tend not to make stupid decisions like opening a new business next to one which is already serving the consumers adequately, but if they sniff a chance to do a better job then they will. The aggregate of this fact reveals itself in the decentralised order of the market economy.


  • #111
    Valmont
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,857 ✭✭✭Valmont


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    No-one on the "privatisation side" appears to have provided evidence of the building in of market imperfections to the analysis of the potential or real benefits of privatisation.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw
    What is a market imperfection?


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  • #112
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    Valmont wrote: »
    What is a market imperfection?

    High entry barriers, structural tendencies towards undesirable outcomes, reliance on uncosted 'free' public goods, imperfector costly information, information asymmetry, inadequate prevention of collusion and market rigging, are all examples.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • #113
    Iwasfrozen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,250 ✭✭✭✭Iwasfrozen


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    High entry barriers, structural tendencies towards undesirable outcomes, reliance on uncosted 'free' public goods, imperfector costly information, information asymmetry, inadequate prevention of collusion and market rigging, are all examples.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw
    These are taken into account in monopolistic competition and oligarchical competition. Which are both still preferable to a state owned monopoly operating at a loss.


  • #114
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #115
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    I think everyone, on both sides of the discussion, accepts that those exist. What we're trying to tease out is whether the decision to privatise is generally based on a proper analysis of the whole situation, particularly on the characteristics of the market in question, or whether it's usually based on a simplistic reference to the bottom line and politics.

    The argument has been made, in effect, that economists have little real influence over policy (thus excusing their mistakes), but that political decisions such as privatisation are nevertheless based, by incredibly happy coincidence, on sound economics despite an apparent paucity of case analysis - or perhaps simply such case analysis is unknown or unavailable to posters here, notwithstanding their support for privatisation as a policy choice.

    Or to put it somewhat less kindly, I suspect that both the political and non-political supporters of privatisation are, as a general rule, in the dark about whether it's a truly successful policy choice in all (or the majority) of cases where it has been implemented, and that it is in fact implemented and supported more on the basis of ideological conviction than empirical evidence.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • #116
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #117
    For Reals
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,964 ✭✭✭For Reals


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    The IMF and the United States are far from good examples of what's in the common good. Both organizations are concerned with profits seldom shared by the majority in only so much as to keep the wheels greased to enable the working poor assist with the profit making of others. The U.S. is the last place one should look for how a society should be run. Big business doing well smothers the majority by keeping the status quo intact. Even when their own rules fall down they'll sing from another more socialist hymn book if it saves their hides, see IMF.


  • #118
    ardmacha
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,476 ✭✭✭ardmacha


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    This represented a typical boards post, it started with a very selective quotation which lost the sense of the original post quoted and ended with an ad hominem criticism of the poster.

    I have not made "excuses" for the public service, but have demanded a nuanced analysis of the many problems with public services. This form of analysis is uncommon and even unwelcome on boards, with a few posters being honourable exceptions. Many here simply like to jeer whoever it seems permissible to currently jeer at. Others have a particular agenda which avoids a proper analysis of anything which might throw up any evidence that contradicts that agenda. Such persons criticise the PS even where it is not justified and support the private sector regardless of its manifest incompetence.

    My original post posed the question as to whether bad managed public services would be replaced with badly managed outsourcing of public services. I did not object in any way to general improvement in the driver licensing service. I was simply a customer who went along expecting better from a totally redesigned service. "Initial" problems are all very fine, but this service had been in place for five months or so and these problems should have been eliminated.

    I will accept criticism of the term " "an [sic] complete shower of jokers". Thank you for pointing out the spelling error. Bad service can result from bad design, from a failure by management to carry out the design or by customer facing individuals thwarting the design. In the case of the NDLS, I believe the customer facing staff were doing their best, but had not the autonomy to override an anti-customer design. Consequently, I do not characterise the front line staff as jokers, but those above them and those who outsourced the system without proper quality standards.
    To paraphrase Nixon, we are all Chicagoans now.

    The values of the Chicago Outfit are indeed in the ascendant.


  • #119
    Frank Lee Midere
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    Given you were responding to Scofflaw who said he found inexplicable the idea that some people on this thread - ie you - have previously argued that economists had no influence on Government the inexplicablity is your argument, which is now against your previous position.


    Remarkable.

    Here's your quote


    It's news to me that economists were at the forefront of shaping Irish economic policy in 2002, and through the Bertie era more generally. One could cast reasonable doubt on that assertion.


  • #120
    Karl Stein
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,689 ✭✭✭Karl Stein


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    You can leave me out of that 'we'. I'd rather not be associated with the Chicagoan filth who encouraged the Chilean junta to torture and murder thousands of people.


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  • #121
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #122
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #123
    ardmacha
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,476 ✭✭✭ardmacha


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    I do. A discussion forum where people have an answer regardless of the discussion isn't much use.

    If the choice is between badly managed private services and badly managed public services, we should always choose the former. They are less expensive to fund, at the very least.

    Perhaps in some cases. But there can be major mess-ups, M50 toll bridge for instance. In this case the savings may not be very great, some supervision is still needed, there has to be some return to capital. More likely any saving is achieved by not having pensions etc for the workers, which is very doubtful saving.


  • #124
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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