per capita income.

[billvon]

OTOH, if it becomes a government service, it just needs to pay for salaries and equipment (purchased per lowest bid). Worker's Unions may negotiate for favorable perks, but in the long run, the working class returns every penny back into the economy, whereas the wealthy just pile up the money in trust funds and passive income investments.

So the union bosses get rich and put their money overseas, and the workers go on strike for more money - and the trash doesn't get collected.

Thinking that either system (public vs private) will magically work for the benefit of the community, rather than their own gain, is just that - magical thinking. It's always a battle between what the customer (the town) wants and what the provider (the private company or the union) wants. The provider will NEVER work for the good of the customer - they will work for their own good, period. If it's an open competition for the work, then "working for their own good" will mean putting in the lowest bid and doing just enough to not lose the job, or pay too much in penalties. And the town will not pay a cent more than they agreed.

If there's a competition for work, then that stays in balance. If there's no competition, it goes open loop.

The military has plenty of surplus heavy equipment. When I was working for the Nisqually Tribe, I acquired two good running but "expired" 5 ton trucks for free from the military base next-door to the reservation. These trucks were not tagged by the safety Lockout/Tagout program and thus useable for other than military service.

Great! Sounds like a good plan. And if a private company did the same thing and offered trucking services for a rock-bottom price, also great.

 

[RainbowSingularity]

Have you ever analyzed who benefits most from the occasional COLA adjustment in salaried personnel.

COLA is is defined as an actual cost adjustment, but is calaculated and distributed as a percentage of income.
2% COLA increase on 1,000 salary (20), per month, and a COLA increase on a 100,000 dollar salary (2000) per month.

Instead of a "cost-of-living" increase, we get a "cost-of-lifestyle" increase.

Neat trick, huh..........

The USA crooked system designed to undermine the working class gaining control of the equity controls of the government administration is nothing new.

the reality of the COLA is that is a tool to prevent the working class from revolting against the rich greedy crooks
while managing inflation to prevent the federal exchange from gaining enough power to be a moral independent authority.

meanwhile the rich are laughing at the working class as the rich(industrialists) make more and more new laws to attack unions.

look at outsourcing of usa jobs
there is no moral accountability and no patriotism by those people.

 

[Write4U]

So the union bosses get rich and put their money overseas, and the workers go on strike for more money - and the trash doesn't get collected.

And how do the Union bosses get rich? It's the membership that pays the dues, no? It's not taxpayers who pay the dues, they pay for the services.

Thinking that either system (public vs private) will magically work for the benefit of the community, rather than their own gain, is just that - magical thinking. It's always a battle between what the customer (the town) wants and what the provider (the private company or the union) wants. The provider will NEVER work for the good of the customer - they will work for their own good, period. If it's an open competition for the work, then "working for their own good" will mean putting in the lowest bid and doing just enough to not lose the job, or pay too much in penalties.

Right, all the more reason to have government eployees do the job for a fair wage. Note that with a universal healthcare system unions need not negotiate for those perks.

And the town will not pay a cent more than they agreed

They won't need to, government employees are salaried.

If there's a competition for work, then that stays in balance. If there's no competition, it goes open loop.

But there is no competition, the faceless employees are salaried and the only cost is the acquisition of durable equipment (bought at lowest bid). As an incentive for low bids on supplies from for profits, tax exemptions may be a solution.

Great! Sounds like a good plan. And if a private company did the same thing and offered trucking services for a rock-bottom price, also great.

Offer them tax incentives. A company offering supplies or services at no profit to the government, can claim tax exemptions. That's the whole idea of Not-for-Profits providing "community services" (.orgs). I worked for one for 5 years, and always felt proud of making a valuable contribution to the community. Our NICAA.org administered Food Banks, Weatherization, Elderly Housing (5 ea. 30 apartment complexes), Energy Assistance.

These services were rewarding in all respects to all the people involved. No one made a profit, but everyone got paid a fair wage or reimbursement (including tax reductions for suppliers) or received badly needed (sometimes life-saving) assistance.

These services did not replace for-profit services. The recipients could not afford these cost-saving remedies in the first place.

OTOH, if a town hires a "nephew" of the mayor as the new "financial advisor to the town" you may end up with a situation like Flint, the worst possible decision in that town's entire history.

Of course Flint has 52% black population and one of the lowest per capita incomes in the nation. But alas, can't make a profit in Flint on anything, so to hell with the town. The rich can afford to wait and eventually buy the land cheap and build a new waterplant and residential district.

I call that "criminal negligence and opportunism".
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...al-deaths-study-finds/?utm_term=.5f3cefcce110

Have you seen the latest Trump proposals to reduce funding for all the non-profit social services to US citizens?
Even Pence spoke up questioning the wisdom of such drastic actions to "Make America Great Again".

The only shiny thing Capitalists want to see standing on the hill is a Trump Tower.
Reminds me of Roman times under Nero.

 

[Jeeves]

But if we apply this to public works, then we are dealing with profit motive again and less than full measure gets applied to the "public works", without sufficient regulation.

I don't see how. Unless we're not using the phrase "public works" in the same way. What I meant was services like policing, road construction, etc. By taking money out of those things, I meant government-owned equipment run by government employees - no private enterprise. I don't see how the government's own operations wouldn't have regulation or would have any profit involved.
Corruption, embezzling and misappropriation of materials are still possible, of course.

 

[Jeeves]

Yep. They have a choice - get screwed by the same company, get screwed by some other company, or get screwed by the town worker's union.

Of those the third is at least benefitting citizens who pay taxes.

 

[RainbowSingularity]

perks

technically they are not perks(fringe benefits)
perks would attract perk tax by the government which would result in the devaluation of the items or services.
this would leverage up the cost to the company as a compliance issue while forcing more money through the business at an administrational loss.

thus they are contract conditions of employment rather than "perks"
there is "express terms" (actions)
and
there is "implied terms" (rules or words or work place culture)

The irony in perk tax(fringe benefits) being seen as some type of socialist win for the working class, it is just a means for the company to cut out a great deal of things that an employee may have previously stolen or exploited.
now perks(fringe benefits) apply almost exclusively to the rich upper class management role.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/employee-benefits

Fringe Benefits
Fringe benefits are generally included in an employee’s gross income (there are some exceptions). The benefits are subject to income tax withholding and employment taxes. Fringe benefits include cars and flights on aircraft that the employer provides, free or discounted commercial flights, vacations, discounts on property or services, memberships in country clubs or other social clubs, and tickets to entertainment or sporting events.

In general, the amount the employer must include is the amount by which the fair market value of the benefits is more than the sum of what the employee paid for it plus any amount that the law excludes. There are other special rules that employers and employees may use to value certain fringe benefits. See Publication 15-B, Employers' Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits, for more information.

"tips" are an income
not a fringe benefit or a perk
employee wages are always lowered by employers where tips are larger.
this is inherently dishonest but widely accepted.

Publication 15-B (2019), Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits

For use in 2019
https://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b
"PERK"

1. Fringe Benefit Overview
A fringe benefit is a form of pay for the performance of services. For example, you provide an employee with a fringe benefit when you allow the employee to use a business vehicle to commute to and from work.

Performance of services.

A person who performs services for you doesn't have to be your employee. A person may perform services for you as an independent contractor, partner, or director. Also, for fringe benefit purposes, treat a person who agrees not to perform services (such as under a covenant not to compete) as performing services.

Provider of benefit.

You’re the provider of a fringe benefit if it is provided for services performed for you. You’re considered the provider of a fringe benefit even if a third party, such as your client or customer, provides the benefit to your employee for services the employee performs for you. For example, if, in exchange for goods or services, your customer provides day care services as a fringe benefit to your employees for services they provide for you as their employer, then you’re the provider of this fringe benefit even though the customer is actually providing the day care.

Recipient of benefit.

The person who performs services for you is considered the recipient of a fringe benefit provided for those services. That person may be considered the recipient even if the benefit is provided to someone who didn't perform services for you. For example, your employee may be the recipient of a fringe benefit you provide to a member of the employee's family.

 

[Write4U]

Jeeves said,
I'll do you one step more simple: take money out of politics and public works altogether.

Write4U said: But if we apply this to public works, then we are dealing with profit motive again and less than full measure gets applied to the "public works", without sufficient regulation.

I don't see how. Unless we're not using the phrase "public works" in the same way. What I meant was services like policing, road construction, etc. By taking money out of those things, I meant government-owned equipment run by government employees - no private enterprise. I don't see how the government's own operations wouldn't have regulation or would have any profit involved.

Sorry, I phrased that incorrectly. You are correct, nothing changes except for the profit incentive. Rules, regulations, safety, everything else remains the same. However the trend is in the direction of private for-profit contractors and these costs continue to rise well beyond the actual cost of service delivery.

Corruption, embezzling and misappropriation of materials are still possible, of course.

Sure, corruption can be found anywhere. However in a controlled environment of a not-for-profit government service, fraud is easier to detect than in a free market.

And if Public works are awarded to non-ptofits, the lobbyists for Big Business would lose a lot of clout, if you can tell them, "save your breath and bribes......the government is taking care of it at a lower cost than you can ever deliver".

Just consider presidential elections. 2020 will probably see a Billion dollar election, which would fund many public works and provide many jobs. Politics have become hopelessly corrupted by accessibility to unlimited funds.

 

[Jeeves]

Rules, regulations, safety, everything else remains the same.

In fact, sticking to the rules and safety are both far higher in government service than private industry. One reason is those pesky unions. Public services unions are often tough negotiators (and, yes, that's another opportunity for corruption) but they are sticklers for safety. (I've been in one. It could be inconvenient, but that still beats the hell out of burning alive or being crushed by a forklift.)

However the trend is in the direction of private for-profit contractors and these costs continue to rise well beyond the actual cost of service delivery.

That's not so much a trend as an evil plot.

Sure, corruption can be found anywhere. However in a controlled environment of a not-for-profit government service, fraud is easier to detect than in a free market.

It also tends to be on a much smaller scale. A couple hundred thousand, rather than a couple of million.

the lobbyists

They just need to go extinct. by any means necessary.

Politics have become hopelessly corrupted by accessibility to unlimited funds.

And they want it all back - with interest.
Our entire economy runs on debt. How long do you figure it can keep running that way?

 

[RainbowSingularity]

these costs continue to rise well beyond the actual cost of service delivery.

that is because greed is good
and
businesses that do not promote a concept of greed as their main drive are seen as not serious enough to be given priority of contracts where the purse strings are not held by those who pay the bills.
this distance between the payer and the contractor allows the greed to leverage the market out of a real market model.
no doubt investment brokers have seen this as a potential to shift their investment portfolios into to balance lower risk higher gain margins.
however.
now construction has collapsed after chinas growth rate has been cut in half
everyone is trying to play hide the sausage.
it will be interesting to see how many US construction companys go to the wall(need to close down to protect their proprietory investment) over the next 2 years.

 

[Jeeves]

Never mind, they'll get bailed out with the taxes of minimum wage employees, just so long as they grew too big to fail before they failed.

 

[Beaconator]

soo
your saying a lack of ability to victimise employees is unfair to the company's that employ them ?

For what reason? Are they deserving to be victimised? If I don't give me 1/4 percent of my yearly. If I am then tax me to death.

 

[RainbowSingularity]

What I meant was services like policing, road construction, etc. By taking money out of those things,

etc

etc is a pretty big group with lots of manufactured loop holes.

I meant government-owned equipment run by government employees

a police car ? a fire engine ? not ambulances though, they are all privately owned in the usa.
(i found out a a very very very small number of fire engines are also privately owned)
irony ?
how do you exploit money off people by using a police car ?
how do you exploit money off people by using a fire engine ?
how do you exploit money off people by using an ambulance ?

clearly there is a moral game-a-foot
is this the sociopath playing or the psychopath playing ?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighting_in_the_United_States

As of 2014, there were 1,134,400 firefighters in the United States (not including firefighters who work for the state or federal governments or in private fire departments). Of these, 346,150 (31%) are career and 788,250 (69%) are volunteer.

quite a dislocation between the politicized idea of paying patriotism its dues with capitalism.

exploiting a capitalist market by claiming socialism as the only possible business model to service your private capitalist ideology.

ideologically corrupt !
morally corrupt !

let the market decide ? lol ! soo many liars and con-artists

"we come in peace, your all going to die, nothing personal, its just business"

why dont all fire fighters in the usa go on strike to get a 15% pay increase & minimum 15 hours a week pay for volunteers who will be listed as part-time-full-time ?
that is capitalism at its very core.

funny how self acclaimed die hard capitalists convert to socialism so quickly.

 

[Write4U]

funny how self acclaimed die hard capitalists convert to socialism so quickly

When it suits them. I hear no complaints about corporate welfare from capitalists!

 

[RainbowSingularity]

When it suits them.

'greed is good' ... all hail the bleeding Madonna of money

 

[Write4U]

'greed is good' ... all hail the bleeding Madonna of money

"Greed" is an abberant expression of "movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction".

This abberation results in a parasitic behavior where the parasite eventually kills the host, and subsequently dies from starvation.

I compare it to the snake which swallows it's own tail.

The Ouroboros or uroborus is an ancient symbol
depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros

Mark Twain: "a favorite theory of mine [is] that no occurrence is sole and solitary, but is merely a repetition of a thing which has happened before, and perhaps often."

Am I straying??...........

 

[Jeeves]

etc is a pretty big group with lots of manufactured loop holes.

Not really. It's just way too many items to list, or for one person to keep track of, even if they didn't have a life.

a police car ? a fire engine ?

yes, yes

not ambulances though, they are all privately owned in the usa.

shouldn't be

how do you exploit money off people by using a police car ?
how do you exploit money off people by using a fire engine ?
how do you exploit money off people by using an ambulance ?

I'm not sure what you mean by "exploit money off people", but there are lots of ways to rake money off public services buying their equipment from private enterprise. One is in the provenance: inflate the price of the vehicle at point of purchase and kick back to the retailer. (Remember the $700 army hammer?)
Another is maintenance contracts and/or repairs and/or replacement agreements; another is fuel procurement.

clearly there is a moral game-a-foot
is this the sociopath playing or the psychopath playing ?

I have no idea what that means. Don't understand the rest of it, either.

 

[Write4U]

Not really. It's just way too many items to list, or for one person to keep track of, even if they didn't have a life.

yes, yes

shouldn't be

I'm not sure what you mean by "exploit money off people", but there are lots of ways to rake money off public services buying their equipment from private enterprise. One is in the provenance: inflate the price of the vehicle at point of purchase and kick back to the retailer. (Remember the $700 army hammer?)
Another is maintenance contracts and/or repairs and/or replacement agreements; another is fuel procurement.

All that is true, but you cannot lay that at the doorstep of public agencies, which are not-for-profit themselves.
It is the profit motive in the private sector, that drives the cost.

Of course, public service agencies must have strict regulations regarding wasteful practices.

 

[iceaura]

It's always a battle between what the customer (the town) wants and what the provider (the private company or the union) wants.

The union is not a provider. How did that slip in there?

Thinking that either system (public vs private) will magically work for the benefit of the community, rather than their own gain, is just that - magical thinking.

Some systems work better than others.

A capitalist market set up under the pretense there will be competition when there will not be is one of the systems that seldom works even adequately.

 

[Jeeves]

All that is true, but you cannot lay that at the doorstep of public agencies, which are not-for-profit themselves.

I didn't. I was responding to an objection that I don't fully understand.

It is the profit motive in the private sector, that drives the cost.

Yes, and greed in general. A competitive/monetary culture has its own ambiance; an ethic and a sensibility that permeates everything that society does, thinks and desires. Everything is counted in $$; money is the main motivation for decisions and actions.

Of course, public service agencies must have strict regulations regarding wasteful practices.

Public funding is always problematic - in revenue sources, in distribution, allocation, priorities and regulation. One of the recurrent problems is the fiscal cycle: government agencies are funded only a year at a time, dependent on legislative bodies, which makes long-term budgeting impossible. You can't save up from one period to the next, so you have to buy major equipment on credit and carry the debt into the next ten fiscal years. You can't re-allocate funds as needs change. This not only means nightmarish bookkeeping, but constant insecurity.
I mean, one brain-damaged president can shut down your entire service for weeks or months - on a whim!

 

[RainbowSingularity]

I'm not sure what you mean by "exploit money off people",

convenient ignorance of the normalised capitalist drug addict persona aside...

exploit is the process of manipulating personal gain from the utility at the expense of the people it is supposed to service and the utility ongoing & long-term sustainability.

queue all the excuses that capitalist greed personalities that then start asking why they should care or pay for infrastructure...
meanwhile the same personality of the greedy drug addict is normalized as an acceptable moral business model with the magic word "share-holders" as the scape goat catch all nudge & a wink.

the opportunity to charge a little more and take a little less profit over several decades to then allow for proper long term investment into new production and systems maintenance has been stolen.
it cant be recovered.