James Knott wrote:
On 06/13/2014 06:14 AM, Per Jessen wrote:
I would rather have private enterprise doing it than government - state-operated machinery always end up bloated beyond belief, imho.
In Ontario, we have experience with private enterprise taking tax payers for a ride, often providing poorer service and not always doing as good a job.
I think every country with some sort of privatized service public will recognize that. OTOH, I also have experience with government offices taking tax payers for a ride, often providing poorer service and not always doing as good a job. :-)
In all cases, the employees are paid less the main aim of the company seems to be taking as much money as possible. The worst example is a company set up to run the air ambulance service, but the quality of that service dropped like a rock, to the point the provincial coroner has determined that company was responsible for several deaths, due to late or no transport.
In Switzerland, REGA, a charity, has been operating 99% of all emergency air ambulance/transport services for more than 50 years. There is a new competitor on the scene now, TCS, an automobile club.
If all a private enterprise does is take public money for the owners and does not provide a significant improvement, then we're better off without them.
I would say, as long as they do as well as previous operator, it's fine.
There are other examples of how "great" privatization is.
There's nothing basically wrong with the idea, the problems are to be found in the implementation. Anyway, I wasn't really talking about privatization, but simply that it doesn't always take a government to run things. Switzerland is very slim on government and hence low on bureaucracy (when compared to many other European countries). -- Per Jessen, Zürich (24.9°C) http://www.hostsuisse.com/ - dedicated server rental in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org