Weekly fiscal cliff.

[notjarvis]

QUOTE (TakingArms @ Oct 8 2013, 11:08 PM) I'm sure they all feel that way. Unfortunately my boss doesn't give a @#(! if I'm "doing my best" or frankly even how I feel about it. If I don't make him a certain amount of money per quarter, I get yelled, lose bonus money, and/or get fired. I have yet to meet a federal employee with a similar arrangement.

Problem is a lot of agencies of the state have outcomes that are far from easy to quantify. It's not as simple as "just" making profit.

The Police is an obvious example.
If crime falls is it because of police prevention?
Other factors?
If they make a huge number of arrests because the crime rate is much higher are they a better force which requires more investment? Who knows and even the police can't accurately measure the results of their actions.

Take a policeman who works hard in his community, builds community spirit through police organised activities and stuff, and in his area the crime rate falls.

While he does this he catches 4 criminals, and sends them to jail.

Take another who does 9-5 and catches 10 criminals and sends them to jail.

Under a lot of Police performance related pay systems we've implemented in this country the second would get a nice pay-rise/bonus, while the first would probably get told off for not collaring enough crims (even if he's "prevented" a similar number of crimes - such things are hard to prove directly) ......

[NightRychune]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eXSIsNS4tw

relevant metaphor

[takingarms1]

QUOTE (notjarvis @ Oct 9 2013, 02:59 AM) Problem is a lot of agencies of the state have outcomes that are far from easy to quantify. It's not as simple as "just" making profit.

Exactly. Which is what tends to lead to massive inefficiency. It's not good or bad. It just is.

[HSharp]

The problem is that services which are privately don't want the most bang for their bucks, they want the minimum bang required for the minimum bucks.

Efficiency shouldn't always be a priority, just because a service is inefficient doesn't mean it isn't providing a good service, you get problems when you have unsustainable services where they spend more money then they receive but if a service does spend less or equal to what it receives then just because it might be inefficient doesn't mean it should be privatised.

Typically a government run service will be inefficient and corrupt while a private service will be low quality and corrupt.

[takingarms1]

I think Efficiency should always be a priority, if you define efficiency as doing the most you can with what you have. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to do with government, where most of the workers don't have much motivation to be efficient. I'm not going to sit here and spin nonsense about laziness or workers being hacks or anything like that. I think most humans want to do well when they do things like their daily job. But when you work for a government entity, your motivations are not the same as when you work for a private one, where keeping costs down and productivity up is directly rewarded. What naturally follows is a tendency towards inefficiency.

Of course that doesn't necessarily mean that I believe everything should be privatized. Some things can't be trusted to the private sector, because the motivations of the private sector would tend to compromise or corrupt service (i.e. I think we can all agree a private sector police department is a bad idea).

[HSharp]

QUOTE (TakingArms @ Oct 9 2013, 06:45 PM) I think Efficiency should always be a priority, if you define efficiency as doing the most you can with what you have.

The problem is that a typical way of making something more efficient is actually trying to get it to do the same or more then it does while giving it less resources.

The problem with productivity in government run services is that it can't really be accurately quantified. Private run prisons get money per prisoner, heck even GP's in UK are pretty much just given money per patient registered with them, this leads to problems of trying to get as many prisoners/patients as possible but by increasing the number means more effort is required to adequately service the population, however increasing quality of service doesn't equate to an increase in income, in-fact it can be the opposite, obviously the capitalist solution is let the market forces work it out, typically a badly provided for service won't be used and consumers will go to competitors who provide a better service, but prisons are usually tendered bids which means the contract will go to the lowest bidder and once they have the bid there isn't as much incentive to actually follow the standards of the tender unless it directly affects income.

EDIT: Contrary to popular belief, GP's in the UK are private businesses which run on a contract with the government unlike hospitals which are run by the NHS. They are very much like private run prisons in that they are government mandated so your not just going to be able to build a new one without government permission which directly impedes competition.

[CronoDroid]

QUOTE (TakingArms @ Oct 4 2013, 09:17 AM) I think these comments are funny. You all act like it's some great tragedy that our politicians are arguing about money and/or that the government is "shut down." All essential services are still functioning. Some offices are closed, whoopdie do.

Let the politicians fight about stupid stuff. It gives them less time to do worse things like pass amendments to the patriot act taking away more of my rights. Eventually, probably in a couple of days or so, they'll work out some kind of compromise and the government will no longer be "shut down." It's just a lot of grandstanding right now.

Act? Shut the $#@! up.

The tragedy is using this "strategy" as a method of governance, which could have extremely serious ramifications down the road. There's no guarantee that they'll compromise. And even if they do compromise, that just legitimizes this strategy, which again will lead to policy and social stagnation. It's extortion. Sure most of the government is still technically "running" but why can't the whole thing just run properly? Also sorry to tell you this but the Executive is also complicit in taking away your rights, not just Congress. "Essential" services like the DEA are still operating.

They're also not just arguing about money, they're arguing over a bill that was passed by Congress, signed into law by the President, validated by the Supreme Court, campaigned on by the President who won the election and is approved by most Americans. That's just not doing a good job, in my book.

Stop trying to act intellectually superior by suggesting that you're above these petty issues. Yes you're really cool because you just don't care.

[Raveen]

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-02...deral-employees

Very relevant reading.

[notjarvis]

QUOTE (TakingArms @ Oct 9 2013, 02:56 PM)

QUOTE (notjarvis @ Oct 9 2013, 07:59 AM)
Problem is a lot of agencies of the state have outcomes that are far from easy to quantify. It's not as simple as "just" making profit.

Exactly. Which is what tends to lead to massive inefficiency. It's not good or bad. It just is.

But the other side of the coin is (clearly) if a private company did such a job, with ill defined outcomes - it's difficult to measure their success in an informed way, and the driver for private companies is nearly always to do the minimal amount to satisfy the contract (as that will be cheapest leading to the largest profit).

In my experience of working with Private contractors on what were previously Government projects, the Government agencies which are subcontracting the work end up having large contract, legal and compliance departments to ensure no wriggle room, and that the contractors are doing what was intended, otherwise they are out-gunned and end up spending well over the odds.

Not to mention bid prices go up as any private company has to factor in a large cost to the business of all the failed bids before they get work. There are plenty of inefficiencies with having a choice of multiple suppliers which just aren't there with one department handling it (effectively - a monopoly can be quite efficient in some ways)

[Gandalf2]

I just wanted to post here to laugh at America.