Brock's libertarian response to Wicked Tribe

**BrockSamson** · 01-14-11, 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by WickedTribe

You're just restating your belief as a series of talking points. What facts have lead you to this belief that nothing is more inefficient than government programs? Would the military be more efficient if it were run for profit by corporations? How about highways? What about laying roads, or pipes, or electrical lines in rural areas? Do you think that capitalism would handle that well (has it handled it well in the past?)

As for wasting your tax money on things that you don't use, which things? You don't use science? Do you use a cellular phone? GPS? The internet? Almost any medical technology? If so, then you use publicly funded research. These technologies are vital to our economy now, but they weren't profitable for a long time, and the cost to research them was well beyond the scope of any private companies anyway. No company is going to invest in research that will cost millions of dollars a year, and won't produce profitable results for decades, but without this science, you can't get to the profitable stuff.

Sorry for the delay in responding, I forgot to check back. I don't want to hijack the science thread with this really long response so I am going to move it into its own area. I have to say its fun to discuss this kind of stuff here, I don't get too many opportunities. I will try and take each point in order. Also, I really do believe what I say here. I am not arguing for the sake of arguing. I also know its crazy and not what most would agree with, so you don't need to tell me that, haha. I am a nut, I know.

- The military would absolutely run more efficiently if it was privately run. But, I would never, ever, argue for that to happen. Military is one of the few things that I think the government is responsible for. Private companies live and die on efficiency, and our defense budget and procurement process for defense programs (Tanker contract, F-35, Marine amphibious vehicle) are perfect examples of the inefficiency built into it. A lot of military programs get contracted out under something called "Cost Plus". What that means is that a private company will get the contract and they will tell the government what they think it will cost to do, and whoops if it happens to cost more than that (the Plus part) the government will pay for that too. Now that private company who contracts out another commercial provider sure as hell doesn't do that. Boeing will contact Radio Company A, tell them they need a radio for their new joint army/air-force flying go-cart. Radio Company A isn't the only company that gets a proposal from Boeing, they also send one out to A, B and C. So three companies will now look at the requirements, and try to provide the best value and price and Boeing will make a decission. There is no contingency if it winds up costing more, that company MUST supply the radios for the price they said they would. Now this is a simplified example and all sorts of things can be built into contracts, blah blah blah. This is just a quick not even that good of an example of how inefficient things are. Because I actually agree with you I am not going to argue to much more. haha

-Privately funded roads make a lot of sense. First off, think about how we pay for roads and maintenance. We have gas tax, tolls, taxes from buying a car, etc. 5% comes from tolls. So the other 95% you are forced to pay against your will. It would be one thing if the roads were entirely paid for with tolls and you had a choice to use and not use those roads. So we have money taken from us against our will (well 95% of it) and used on a product that you may or may not hardly even use. I know I do not use the majority of roads in my town, and what about the guy or gal that walks and doesn't use roads at all? Should the person that travels 10 miles round trip to work be paying the same amount of money to maintenance of roads as the person that travels 80 miles round trip? Absolutely not. So that brings us to the privitized solution. Given that there is already roads/highways/etc in place it would be very easy for the government to hand it over. I am going to quote directly a few examples:

"Private road builders are doing this kind of work across the world, such as the double-decker underground highway in Paris, complete with 350 cameras watching for traffic delays or accidents. Any incident is detected in less than 10 seconds. Once the camera detects a problem authorities rush to tow the obstacle away so traffic keeps moving."

"They do the same thing in California, too, on at least one road: Highway 91. Instead of building a brand-new road, they added two lanes in the middle of an existing highway. Drivers can choose to use them, or not. If you want to go this fast, you have to pay. Different amounts depending on the time of day. Sometimes $1.50, sometimes $9. But by paying you save time. Traffic moves. And for some people, time is money. "

"Were these traffic speeding innovations created by government road-builders? No. They were created and paid for by private road-builders."

"Their success has made politicians from other states want to try leasing roads. Mayor Richard Daley did that with the Chicago Skyway. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels leased the Indiana toll road to a private company. He got back billions for his taxpayers. "We received $4 billion, free and clear, no taxes, no debt left to our kids," Daniels said during our interview in January about the lease agreement signed in 2006."

"These are just some of the ways that private roads have been used successfully, and with no tax payer dollars spent on these projects. These are funded through tolls. Polls taken in Washington D.C and Minnesota found that taxpayers overwhelmingly prefer tolls to takes. In DC, 60% preferred tolls and in Minnesota it was 69%."

-As for the things I don't use that I am still charged for by the government... I can certainly go on forever about that, so for the sake of not writing a novel I will skip it, I think my rant about public roads gives you an idea of how far I can go with it. Now, cellular phones, GPS, the internet, medical technology. The reason all of those things are the way they are today is because they are profitable. I pay for the advancement of cellular phone technology by choice when I pay for my $300 Android phone, I pay for the advancement of GPS technology when I bought my Garmin NUVI, I pay for the advancement of internet technology when I give Comcast a stupid amount of money for internet (I fucking hate comcast, and the service is so fucking terrible because they have no competition where I am at, there are no other options) or when I buy something at newegg, amazon, donate money to TPG, etc. All of that money goes to companies and people that utilize and expand the interewebs for profit or exposure. None of that money was taken by force, I give that money willingly because I use GPS, internet, and Cellphones. If it wasn't profitable it wouldn't be what it is today. I am not denying internet, GPS, mobile communication was probably all originally designed with military purposes in mind. But they wouldn't be what they are if there was not a profit drive and a demand for these technologies to be developed by consumers.

**Toad** · 01-14-11, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by BrockSamson

- The military would absolutely run more efficiently if it was privately run. But, I would never, ever, argue for that to happen. Military is one of the few things that I think the government is responsible for. Private companies live and die on efficiency, and our defense budget and procurement process for defense programs (Tanker contract, F-35, Marine amphibious vehicle) are perfect examples of the inefficiency built into it. A lot of military programs get contracted out under something called "Cost Plus". What that means is that a private company will get the contract and they will tell the government what they think it will cost to do, and whoops if it happens to cost more than that (the Plus part) the government will pay for that too. Now that private company who contracts out another commercial provider sure as hell doesn't do that. Boeing will contact Radio Company A, tell them they need a radio for their new joint army/air-force flying go-cart. Radio Company A isn't the only company that gets a proposal from Boeing, they also send one out to A, B and C. So three companies will now look at the requirements, and try to provide the best value and price and Boeing will make a decission. There is no contingency if it winds up costing more, that company MUST supply the radios for the price they said they would. Now this is a simplified example and all sorts of things can be built into contracts, blah blah blah. This is just a quick not even that good of an example of how inefficient things are. Because I actually agree with you I am not going to argue to much more. haha

This isn't true, though. For a very complex program with a large scope, regardless of whether it's the government contracting to a contractor or the contractor contracting to a subcontractor, there is a level of risk that must be mitigated. Risk that getting the work done to create the end product will mean cost and schedule overruns, or that in the end the program just won't work at all. The government CAN write the contract as a Firm Fixed Price contract, in which it says "Here's the work, bid the amount it takes to do it and we don't pay you any more money" but that puts the risk on the contractor. The contractor will mitigate that risk by bidding a lot higher than they would if the government structured the contract as Cost Plus (the Plus is actually "Cost Plus Incentive" or "Cost Plus Award Fee", etc depending on the contract variant, where you give the contractor incentives to control the cost and bring all that private sector efficiency into play).

That's why you see large programs bid as Cost Plus, because you will get no bidders if you say "the only possible contract here is a FFP in which the contractor takes all the risk of it not working, and the ceiling for the FFP is really low" because that's a sucker's bet. Some examples of when problems come into play are when:

a) It's a huge contract and Congress makes it a line item in their budget, frequently tying it to a specific vendor. This takes a lot of the cards out of the government's hands and lets the contractor off the leash and not afraid to balloon up costs. Contractors frequently use lobbyists to ensure line item appropriations because they know that this secures funding and usually opens up a big payday.

b) Program managers/contractors underbid the initial contract when they know that the amount of work it will take is far higher. This lets the contract get off the ground, because people think it's going to be cheaper, but everyone who knows what's going on knows it's going to take a lot more money.

c) Program requirements are not fully thought out ahead of time, leading to significant levels of work required after contract award to actually figure out how to accomplish government goals, leading to redoing of parts of the contract to take the new work into account. It's a lot of work to figure out everything that's needed ahead of time, and the vendor will tell you anything you want to hear because they know that once they are locked into a contract, that it's more money to rebid the whole thing than to just give them more money to make up the difference in requirements creep.

Obviously it's a lot more complex than this, but I work with this stuff every day and I don't think you are really understanding how government contracts work. I would suggest you read up on some of these amazing "private road" contracts that have been signed... 75 year leases where they can do whatever the f they want, not good for the taxpayer at all. The "government" world is ALREADY very privatized, with government agencies not trying to do the work, but rather bidding it out to private industry to get the work done. Having LESS government oversight on private industry is a terrible idea... there's little enough as it is, and even with that oversight private industry is able to put a lot of 'fast ones' on the government and the American people by extension. Remove that government oversight and you will have contractors doing MORE shady stuff to take taxpayer funds without equal return, not less. Contractors are all about the bottom line... removing government employees who are the people charged with getting the safest, highest quality, best value product for the American taxpayer is not going to magically make contractors deliver better products, it's going to let them off the leash even more and they will deliver worse products. You can clearly see this when you look at government contracts with varying levels of oversight... contractors do not suddenly turn honest once you give them a lot of latitude.

**Thorsen** · 01-14-11, 12:08 PM

Brock, you make interesting points. However, speaking as a self-identified libertarian, I think you lean closer maybe to anarchism even, a lot of libertarians are not against government programs like our military, roads and highways, public education, police and fire departments etc.

A lot of what being libertarian means to me is allowing states to make those decisions rather than the FEDERAL government.

**deathgodusmc** · 01-14-11, 12:36 PM

Let me say first i dont really disagree all that much with your idea but there are points that are incorrect.

Originally Posted by BrockSamson

Sorry for the delay in responding, I forgot to check back. I don't want to hijack the science thread with this really long response so I am going to move it into its own area. I have to say its fun to discuss this kind of stuff here, I don't get too many opportunities. I will try and take each point in order. Also, I really do believe what I say here. I am not arguing for the sake of arguing. I also know its crazy and not what most would agree with, so you don't need to tell me that, haha. I am a nut, I know.

- The military would absolutely run more efficiently if it was privately run. But, I would never, ever, argue for that to happen. Military is one of the few things that I think the government is responsible for. Private companies live and die on efficiency, and our defense budget and procurement process for defense programs (Tanker contract, F-35, Marine amphibious vehicle) are perfect examples of the inefficiency built into it. A lot of military programs get contracted out under something called "Cost Plus". What that means is that a private company will get the contract and they will tell the government what they think it will cost to do, and whoops if it happens to cost more than that (the Plus part) the government will pay for that too. Now that private company who contracts out another commercial provider sure as hell doesn't do that. Boeing will contact Radio Company A, tell them they need a radio for their new joint army/air-force flying go-cart. Radio Company A isn't the only company that gets a proposal from Boeing, they also send one out to A, B and C. So three companies will now look at the requirements, and try to provide the best value and price and Boeing will make a decission. There is no contingency if it winds up costing more, that company MUST supply the radios for the price they said they would. Now this is a simplified example and all sorts of things can be built into contracts, blah blah blah. This is just a quick not even that good of an example of how inefficient things are. Because I actually agree with you I am not going to argue to much more. haha

Every contract has a line regarding extra cost and is usually followed with an agreement that additional costs must have prior approval. This is called a change order. I deal with government contract all the time and they do use this item. Very rarely does a government contract come in at the bid.

-Privately funded roads make a lot of sense. First off, think about how we pay for roads and maintenance. We have gas tax, tolls, taxes from buying a car, etc. 5% comes from tolls. So the other 95% you are forced to pay against your will. It would be one thing if the roads were entirely paid for with tolls and you had a choice to use and not use those roads. So we have money taken from us against our will (well 95% of it) and used on a product that you may or may not hardly even use. I know I do not use the majority of roads in my town, and what about the guy or gal that walks and doesn't use roads at all? Should the person that travels 10 miles round trip to work be paying the same amount of money to maintenance of roads as the person that travels 80 miles round trip? Absolutely not. So that brings us to the privitized solution. Given that there is already roads/highways/etc in place it would be very easy for the government to hand it over. I am going to quote directly a few examples:

"Private road builders are doing this kind of work across the world, such as the double-decker underground highway in Paris, complete with 350 cameras watching for traffic delays or accidents. Any incident is detected in less than 10 seconds. Once the camera detects a problem authorities rush to tow the obstacle away so traffic keeps moving."

"They do the same thing in California, too, on at least one road: Highway 91. Instead of building a brand-new road, they added two lanes in the middle of an existing highway. Drivers can choose to use them, or not. If you want to go this fast, you have to pay. Different amounts depending on the time of day. Sometimes $1.50, sometimes $9. But by paying you save time. Traffic moves. And for some people, time is money. "

"Were these traffic speeding innovations created by government road-builders? No. They were created and paid for by private road-builders."

Oh i remember the 91 freeway. Bad example to use. It is always backed up for miles. Most privately run roads are actually garbage. The reason behind that is private companies are not inclined to spend money. That would be lost profit. Not that i think government run road are great. This issue could be solved by actually posting 1 government employee at the site. The federal government has figured this out with it buildings. Every building i have gone to put flooring in have had a trailer for a army corp eng. in front of the project. Low and behold jobs can be completed on schedule.

"Their success has made politicians from other states want to try leasing roads. Mayor Richard Daley did that with the Chicago Skyway. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels leased the Indiana toll road to a private company. He got back billions for his taxpayers. "We received $4 billion, free and clear, no taxes, no debt left to our kids," Daniels said during our interview in January about the lease agreement signed in 2006."

"These are just some of the ways that private roads have been used successfully, and with no tax payer dollars spent on these projects. These are funded through tolls. Polls taken in Washington D.C and Minnesota found that taxpayers overwhelmingly prefer tolls to takes. In DC, 60% preferred tolls and in Minnesota it was 69%."

-As for the things I don't use that I am still charged for by the government... I can certainly go on forever about that, so for the sake of not writing a novel I will skip it, I think my rant about public roads gives you an idea of how far I can go with it. Now, cellular phones, GPS, the internet, medical technology. The reason all of those things are the way they are today is because they are profitable. I pay for the advancement of cellular phone technology by choice when I pay for my $300 Android phone, I pay for the advancement of GPS technology when I bought my Garmin NUVI, I pay for the advancement of internet technology when I give Comcast a stupid amount of money for internet (I fucking hate comcast, and the service is so fucking terrible because they have no competition where I am at, there are no other options) or when I buy something at newegg, amazon, donate money to TPG, etc. All of that money goes to companies and people that utilize and expand the interewebs for profit or exposure. None of that money was taken by force, I give that money willingly because I use GPS, internet, and Cellphones. If it wasn't profitable it wouldn't be what it is today. I am not denying internet, GPS, mobile communication was probably all originally designed with military purposes in mind. But they wouldn't be what they are if there was not a profit drive and a demand for these technologies to be developed by consumers.

But i do agree the government as a whole is one disfunctional company. They lack any sense of urgency unless its something that directly effects them.

**BrockSamson** · 01-14-11, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Thorsen

Brock, you make interesting points. However, speaking as a self-identified libertarian, I think you lean closer maybe to anarchism even, a lot of libertarians are not against government programs like our military, roads and highways, public education, police and fire departments etc.

A lot of what being libertarian means to me is allowing states to make those decisions rather than the FEDERAL government.

I have thought about and considered anarcho-capitalism and I don't agree with it, I would say I am more libertarian than anarchist for sure. I am for non-private military, police force, etc. My second sentence says that. I will say I am for private education. Sure, a better solution would be taking away the decisions from the federal government, and moving it to state and even better local government (at the county level). I just think we ask the governement at all levels to make too many decisions. I would like to make the decisions by voting with my $$$. Not giving my $$$ and having someone make the decisions for me. We have too many laws and too much control over my own life is given to the government. Courts, corruption, police, defense; thats all I want from the government.

**Blakeman** · 01-14-11, 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by BrockSamson

I have thought about and considered anarcho-capitalism and I don't agree with it, I would say I am more libertarian than anarchist for sure. I am for non-private military, police force, etc. My second sentence says that. I will say I am for private education. Sure, a better solution would be taking away the decisions from the federal government, and moving it to state and even better local government (at the county level). I just think we ask the government at all levels to make too many decisions. I would like to make the decisions by voting with my $$$. Not giving my $$$ and having someone make the decisions for me. We have too many laws and too much control over my own life is given to the government. Courts, corruption, police, defense; that's all I want from the government.

Broke my own rule about not posting here to just say +1 to you sir. I don't completely agree with you on everything but it is a lot more freedom than most folks here could imagine.

**BrockSamson** · 01-14-11, 01:25 PM

deathgodusmc and toad are definitely the ones that know more about what they are talking about here. haha, I just work on projects that have these contracts and if it isn't super obvious now I am not very knowledgeable on the process or facets like they are. Sorry for any bad information I stated, and the gross oversimplification of something that deserved a better description. Thank you for your detailed resonses.

Toad your A, B and C are exactly what I see wrong with the process. I do understand a need for Cost Plus, but you see it used for too frequently. You look at something like the Airborn Laser, there is no way you could ask a vendor to make that, there is nothing to base the cost of the technology off of. But thats one of the very few cases.

Without getting into specifics I know for a fact that more often than anyone would like the government gives the responsibility of requirements definition to an incumbent vendor. The government will ask the vendor to define what the government wants. Its absolutely insane. I was reading about some general (I dont remember who) he went to ford or chevy and asked them how they go from concept to final product so quickly. Now more than ever there is a need to fix the problems and its good to see that there is some effort to improve the process by adopting processes that are used in these private companies.

Either way, I will state again, by no means am I suggesting that the government should hand over the defense procurement to some corporate guy who could do it better, I was just saying that I think if our armed forces were privitized the same job could be done cheaper. There are so many reasons to not do that, that efficiency isn't even a valid point to suggest that the government not be incharge of defense.

**~~hawgballs~~** · 01-14-11, 04:43 PM

Mayor Daley didn't privatize the Skyway, he leased out the rights for toll collection of the Skyway. He did it for a quick payoff to close some budget holes. CPD still patrols it, Chicago still pays for the maintenance. The only thing that changed are the faces that take the money and the doubling of the tolls. Another example of folly of privatization is Mayor Daley's privatizing of the city parking meters, in some parts of the city the price to park on the streets using parking meters has quintupled and the only thing that has become more efficient out of that program is the speed of the meter maids(privatized and ignorant).

The problem with privatizing is there is no accountability. How can you hold the company or worker accountable to the very citizens that are using the roads? And standards, one company's standards could be completely different than another's. There are many reasons why privatization of public resources is not good.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

**deathgodusmc** · 01-14-11, 05:25 PM

It isn't just private companies that do that stuff. When 417 (a toll road around orlando) was proposed the agreement was once the road was paid off the toll would go away. Some ignorant people actually bought that line of shit. Well the road has been paid off for some time now and what has changed? The cost of the toll. It has tripled and who runs it? The state of Florida.

Accountability? Im not trying to debate but since when has there ever been accountability with the government? Either way your in the same boat but a government office is more likely to pay for repairs in a timely manner. Other then that i cant think of any real difference between private and government funded roads.