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Public sector here and Yes. I agree with what Miketually said on the other page.
Yes mate I fully understand your point, I am not arguing with that.
What I am trying to say though is that [b]sometimes the free market does not deliver best services[/b].
"Molgrips, do you not get the concept - I'm able to choose"
I don't hold with that argument that competition necessarily leads to better service. You don't get to choose who maintains your railways, for example. Also, at one time you only had one gas supplier, this was then sold off (and where the f*ck did all the money made from privatisation go?) you now get to choose from several virtually identical companies who all collude to charge the same price.
My Brother in law is a Civil Servant in the benefits agency who would not know a hard days work if it hit him in the face, but then again he earns peanuts.
My Wife is a Police Officer who works really hard.
My Sister is a primary School Teacher, who work so many hours at evenings and weekends its a joke.
One of my friends is a Surgeon, who earns very good money, but works unbeliavably hard and does very little private work.
There is good and bad in the public sector, but the majority work very hard and provide essential services.
Maybe.
actually Molgrips - your comments regards halfords/dixons suggests that people are willing to accept a poorer level of service as long as the price is right and the delivery of the services is more suited to their needs (eg, being open late on weeknights!)
why cant I and my neighbours choose to get our bins collected by someone who offers a better level of service?
Becaus ehaving threee differnt companies collecting bins on different days is inefficient and requires more resources than allowing the council to do it.
One of those companies would eventually beat the others and you would have a private sector monopoly and you know how efficient they are.
Yes you would have choice but it would be costly.
Imagine having four posties delivering your mail again how is this more efficient? Choice can be good or bad depending on the service rather than the product
Now this subsidy I resent greatly - the taxpayer subsiding private sector so as to boost the profits which go to the bosses.
Well that is a curious point of view. Private companies pay what they need to pay to get employees - why would they want to pay more than they need? If they pay too low for a role they will get a 2nd rate employee or will be short staffed. If people can't get by on what the private sector is paying then what should they do? Work more hour? Years ago those on lower incomes did all sorts to survive but these days we say the state should help look after them - to what degree is up for debate.
another one - look at the amount of money taken out of private sector companies by the bosses?
What does that mean? Taken out by owners you mean? That's a return on their investment right?
your comments regards halfords/dixons suggests that people are willing to accept a poorer level of service as long as the price is right and the delivery of the services is more suited to their needs (eg, being open late on weeknights!)
you mean the customer is an idiot dont you 😉
Tiger - I refer to people like Fred Goodwin and Adam crozier. Not the owners
yes tiger god forbid we should let everyone have a living wage ...persoanlly I think they should jack in work and live of benefits as they get more money. Do you really think there is nothing wrong with a system when you "earn " more on benefits than working for the minimum wage? *As others mention the state has to subsidise these people to get a sustainable income.
* please starr a new threead if you wish to calim benefits are too high I am sure you would be happy with a serf /feudal/slave based system
What does that mean? Taken out by owners you mean? That's a return on their investment right?
The pay of directors etc keeps going up hugely in relation to the pay of average workers - even in companies that overall have performed badly. Is this a good example of the free market, or is it just the people who have the power looking after themselves?
a public sector role has a directly comparable private sector role?
Me:
Software developer, few years experience, five years ago, private sector, £35,000 (and offered more when I quit)
Researcher, also doing quite a lot of software development, an extra PhD, 5 more years experience, working much harder, roughly £25,000
In my experience of moving from private to public sector, the private sector was often full of inneficiency, poor management, customers being ripped off left right and centre, golf rather than job skills as the primary driver for advancement, long drunk lunches & pretty slow to get the job done etc. In the public sector, pretty much everyone here is very focused and into what they do, and we get stuff done in easily half the time, and stupid management rarely gets in the way.
Oh yeah, and as for job security, in the private sector, I've spent years working with pretty useless people, because they had no sensible way of sacking people, or because whoever hired them didn't want to admit their mistakes. In the public sector, everyone is forced to justify themselves by getting funding, and almost all people at my level are on short term contracts, renewed based on performance & funding.
The problem with the argument that the public sector is always inneficient and the private sector is efficient, that comes from idiots who have no knowledge, and have just read a few press releases from the more right wing conservative think tanks, is that like most sweeping generalisations, it is bollocks, and just makes you look like a ****. Yes the public sector is inefficient sometimes, yes the private sector is too. There isn't any general trend either way.
As for customer service, that's a laugh - as anyone who has ever called up a utility, phone company etc. because companies are so completely short term profit driven, they basically dump all customer services in order to make themselves more profitable in the short term, without worrying about losing customers in the long term. In part they don't even need to worry about losing customers, because almost all utility companies are as bad as each other. The only exceptions I can think of are Ecotricity, and Smile, who both don't use automated telephone systems, you just get to talk to a useful person pretty much straight away. But that has hardly upped the level of customer service for everyone except for the few who switch to them. Contrast that with the doctors, phone them up, talk to a person, local council, phone em up, guess what, talk to a person, local hospital & midwifes unit, phone them up, talk to a person etc etc.
Joe
yes tiger god forbid we should let everyone have a living wage
You really wanted to miss my point now didn't you?!
If they pay too low for a role they will get a 2nd rate employee or will be short staffed
That only holds when there are more jobs than jobseekers. When it's the other way round, the employers call the shots and consequently the bosses can screw the little people as much as they like.
But in any case, free market ensures that companies will pay the BARE MINIMUM to secure employees.
An even more extreme example of no choice in the private sector is trains. Sure there are many companies, but if I want to go from Cardiff to London there's only one company running trains on that route. So they can be as crap as they want and I've still got to put my custom there if I want train travel.
What happens then is that the service gets worse and worse so they can pay their shareholders and bosses tons. Rich get richer, poor get poorer and the service gets worse.
Both private and public have problems with efficiency and service - it's not as simple as Z11 makes out I think.
Well said Joe marshall
*applause*
You really wanted to miss my point now didn't you?!
Not as much as you clearly wanted to miss mine as I actually responded with a point 🙄
Do you really think there is nothing wrong with a system when you "earn " more on benefits than working for the minimum wage?
Yes, simple answer to that one isn't there, cut benefits!
Both private and public have problems with efficiency and service
as we've repeatedly covered here, if a business is inefficient, [b]it fails[/b] if a business does not provide what its customers want or expect [b]it fails[/b] - this is not a risk with the public sector, and is why the public sector so often fails to offer value for money.
Last week the gov't trumpeted the fact that they had identified 12 projects worth £2bn that they were cancelling, the notion being that they were 'wasteful'. Leaving aside the argument about whether they were wasteful or not (one was a new hospital in Hartlepool), what amazed me was that this was after a 'broad and wide-ranging review' of 217 such projects. In other words [b]over 95%[/b] of these projects the ConDems couldn't argue against even given their 'scorched earth' criteria.
So how bad is all this 'waste' in the public sector in reality??
as we've repeatedly covered here, if a business is inefficient, it fails if a business does not provide what its customers want or expect it fails - this is not a risk with the public sector, and is why the public sector so often fails to offer value for money.
Value for money? Work out how many services you get for your Council Tax. Then work out how much it would cost you to get the same in the private sector..
Zulu-Eleven - MemberYes, simple answer to that one isn't there, cut benefits!
So people are destitute, homeless and hungry. Very nice. Back to the poor house is it?
Still that really shows your true colours
Not as much as you clearly wanted to miss mine as I actually responded with a point
Which was irrelevant so why would I respond? I shall make my point more explicit - why should an employer pay more than he has to for the skills he wants? We have a minimum wage set be the state so that is deemed to be the least payment that is OK; if that is incorrect then I don't think the employer is to blame.
Also, re. Z-11's bin proposal: what about the neighbours the other side of the street that decide that they want a 'super-economy' service that involves their bins being collected only once every two months? To save some money they put their rubbish in your bins when you're out or asleep, or fly-tip it at the start of that nice bit of singletrack you've been riding for the last however many years. I'm sure everyone in your street is far too well off to do this, but what about those ne'er-do-wells from the estate down the road, they might get to hear about that new fly-tipping spot... Not such a great idea now is it?
Yes TJ - hunger and homelessness, the level of poverty in the UK today - look at it out there, its like Mumbai!
People on benefits are so incredibly poor and close to starvation that they even have to kidnap their own children!
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zulu - i'd love to see you manage on benefits
been there, done it, went and got a f*cking job..
see, simple innit!
25% cut to education is gonna hurt,
halt to school rebuilding in london was featured on local news the other night
that will do long term damage to the country and future economic prospects
and i still see no move to insulate us from future banking collapses, the bank levy is pittance compared to what the crisis has cost us
ams till waiting to see what will happen to the sell off of royal mail, nhs etc etc
if its anything like the increased choice we have for the gas elec trains we will see prices rise considerably with little or no increase in service
and the loss of many services, like bike carriage on trains etc
privatising something only means we pay at the point of service not via direct taxation
been there, done it, went and got a f*cking job..see, simple innit!
So, if the Public Sector advertised a similar job to your present one, but for more money, you would not apply on principle?
Yes, simple answer to that one isn't there, cut benefits!
You must be trolling if you think it's that simple.
as we've repeatedly covered here, if a business is inefficient, it fails if a business does not provide what its customers want or expect it fails
As we've repeatedly covered here, that's simply not the case.
why cant I and my neighbours choose to get our bins collected by someone who offers a better level of service?
I think you'll find that most bins are collected by private companies that are contracted by councils.
But don't let the facts get in the way of a good argument.
Yes, simple answer to that one isn't there, cut benefits!
Predictable response. Can we agree that McDonalds could affords to pay its staff more than the minimum wage without going out of business? Can we agree something is wrong if the bare minimum the state says you require to be out of poverty is MORE than you can earn with the minimum wage? Can we agree that is not great that we subsidise huge profit making multinationals off shore based corporations by topping up these wages by tax credits of your hard earned money- I believe you have trademarked that phrase ?
I agree there is clearly a benefit trap and we need to make the difference between the two an incentive to work[which may involve increasing wages and decreasing benefits] but [ unless you want to argue there is full employment capability at the moment] we are going to have people on benefits until[sarcasm] the private sector and the culture of enterprise George thinks will come along to raise us all out of poverty...there is a long tradition of capitalism helping the poor and disadvantaged iirc.[/sarcasm]
I noticed you failed to explain how multiple companies collecting bins or delivering post was more efficient despite loving choice. You know sometimes a monopoly is inevitable and not great if in private hands as they tend to exploit the situation - see Microsoft for example recently.
Tiger some employers are women you always say he in posts when you mean they perhaps you should work in the public sector and get some equality training? 😉
Fair point though I should bring iot up with govt rather than employers
private companies that are contracted by councils
Thats competition for the market - not competition for the customer in the market, completely different things - since when does the householder have a decision who provides the service?
same with trains, competition [b]for[/b] the market, not competition [b]in[/b] the market - basic understanding of economics might help you understand that
TJ -Mcdonalds does pay more than the minimum wage - you get a payrise with every gold star! 😀 In fact, when I was a student I worked there, since my (labour) council was somewhat reluctant to provide funding for a trainee gamekeeper... see, no need to rely on government handouts, paid my own way!
[i]Every single solitary public employee is a drain... blah blah[/i]
I would [i]dearly[/i] like to see you walk into ITU and say that - perhaps you'd care to tell some of the TA NHS staff what a bad job they do. **** me, you have no idea.
I grasp the power of the market - indeed, it furnishes me with ever-more refined bicyle kit, for starters - but "choice and competition" as applied to acute/emergency care is just tosh. If I've got massive polytrauma or a dissecting aneurysm, I don't want friggin' choice - I just want an experience-hardened surgical team, who (shock horror!) probably achieve more by virtue of c o - o p e r a t i o n, than anything else. Privatisation of the NHS won't result in market utopia - it will simply see infrastructure and assets snapped up by the likes of Cinven, Serco, etc, while [i]somebody else[/i] attempts to do the messy, tricky stuff. It won't be the "market" that picks up the slack. That's not how they manage acute care on the continent - and, indeed, they spend [i]more[/i] than us on healthcare.
as we've repeatedly covered here, if a business is inefficient, it fails if a business does not provide what its customers want or expect it fails - this is not a risk with the public sector, and is why the public sector so often fails to offer value for money.
Not true. Businesses have to be incredibly inefficient to fail. All they have to do not to fail, is scrape by and make a profit, or at least not so much of a loss that their debts get called in, and be not so much worse than their competitors that they actually die. Which in many markets is not exactly a high bar.
In an ideal world, there'd be a million companies able to do everything, there'd be no inertia in markets, no advantage to being a big established company, no barriers to entry, none of the other things that mean that markets don't actually work how you think they do, and it'd all be lovely, customer service would be great, and we'd all be happy with our electricity providers.
If markets were 100% perfect and efficient, we wouldn't have wasted zillions of pounds and years of peoples time during the dot-com boom etc. We had bollocks companies with no sensible business plan being hyped up by market lovers so much that they could even buy and almost ruin major actually profitable, viable businesses (AOL/time warner being the worst one).
We wouldn't have had banks bombing left right and centre over the last couple of years, as they discovered that the supposedly efficient market pricing of assets was actually pricing things worth bugger all as being worth an awful lot.
Joe
Tiger some employers are women you always say he in posts when you mean they
But as I've said before that's bad English IMO - as it happens my boss is a woman...and a right PITA she can be too 😉
Noteeth - what did I say [b]after[/b] that?
Go on, finish the quote!
Every single solitary public employee is a drain on the resource, every single one is "taking money out of the economy "through their very existence - [b]some of these people are very necessary, vital constituents of society,[/b] many, oh so very many, are not!
So, you may be able treat a dissecting aneurysm, but you clearly cannot f*cking well read a complete sentence, come back and debate with the big boys when you can!
joemarshall - good post
many, oh so very many, are not![u]
And your actual evidence for this? I don't ask for proof but a bit of evidence would be nice. I reakon slack is a % or two
Whcih services don't you want to be provided?
Street naming executive!
There, thats one service we don't need to provide, one job thats not needed in a local authority! thats your starter for ten TJ! One £19k job cropped off the public payroll!
So, you may be able treat a dissecting aneurysm, but you clearly cannot f*cking well read a complete sentence, come back and debate with the big boys when you can!
I don't consider you one of the big boys, Z11 🙂
Why? Because you are making vast generalisations without evidence. Or at least, you seem to be.
Plus, public sector workers are not taking money out of the economy - mostly, they spend it back IN the economy.. which is why govt spending can be economic stimulus.
No, Z-11, I read the entire thing... fact is, you are employing the kind of market rhetoric that has been used to justify absurd & damaging reform in the NHS (and will probably see its final demise). Firing a few "diversity outreach co-ordinators" [insert fave Daily Mail example here] will make ****-all difference, when compared to the massive damage done to public sector (NHS, MOD, transport) infrastructure over the last decade, largely due to ill-planned privatisation. I'm sick to the back ****ing teeth with "choice and competition" mantras - as so lovingly chanted by yourself. It's every bit as dogmatic as anything spouted by the Left.
[i]So, you may be able treat a dissecting aneurysm[/i]
I can't... but I know enough to know that it ain't like buying white goods.
so noteeth - why did you try and partially quote me to insinuate that I thought that TA NHS staff did a bad job?
Or were you trying to play reductio ad absurdium?
If you want to argue that piss poor fake privatisation damages the NHS, go for it, I'm all in agreement - that doesn't however mean that the NHS is running at peak efficiency and cannot learn lessons from outside the public sector!
we know the private sector is King in your opinion but I raised some issues about this a number of times have you taken to ignoring my posts? Are they just too taxing for you?
I am trying baiting now clearly 😉
Fekkin amazing.
Why are we in a recession right now? Why is this discussion even happening? Because the banks and other financial institutions (all private sector, unless Muppet11 would care to correct me on that) managed their affairs so badly they begged tens of billions of pounds off the taxpayer to save themselves from going under. And yet some muppets [b]still[/b] manage to bang on about how inefficient the public sector is compared to the private sector.
Still 25% public sector cuts - how much of that will be pulled from generous army pensions?