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[McTraveller]

I think there's a subtlety about what "privatization" means.  I personally like the model for roads: the roads themselves are owned by the public, but the road construction/maintenance companies are private.  This model also makes sense for things like natural resource management.  Social Security I think should never be private, because its purpose is long-term social stability rather than short-term profit.  I can't think of a model where you could have "public ownership" of something social security but "private companies" implementing it, so it makes sense that it just be wholly public.

I'm not a fan of tolls on "public" roads like Interstates. Mostly because it's an annoyance (traffic disruption) and adds accidental complexity - you have to maintain the toll infrastructure on top of the roads themselves, so it's wasteful even if it ends up being an increase in net income to manage the roads.  I'd rather just pay a little more on my federal income tax.

I don't care about private (toll or otherwise) roads so long as they aren't the only effective road between two points. I know there are arguments for some toll roads along the lines of "but you can take the parallel non-toll road" but that parallel road is often longer distance, slower speed, and with more stops.  This makes the toll road basically rent-seeking.

EDIT: wow massive typo above, the construction companies *are* private; not *are not* 

[MrRoboto75]

I'm opposed to toll roads simply because the toll near work only accepts exact change and that means a lot of customers pester me for quarters I'll never have as work only gives me five dollar bills for change.

And this toll road only started doing that post quarantine and I suspect they just never bothered to hire people to man booths there for change or something.

[EuchreJack]

I'm opposed to toll roads simply because the toll near work only accepts exact change and that means a lot of customers pester me for quarters I'll never have as work only gives me five dollar bills for change.

And this toll road only started doing that post quarantine and I suspect they just never bothered to hire people to man booths there for change or something.

Toll roads near me don't even accept cash anymore.

[nenjin]

This model also makes sense for things like natural resource management.

Just....no. American businesses demonstrate they'll cut every corner imaginable *for profit.* There is no replacement good for the environment. If your cable company fucks you over, and your government doesn't allow them a monopoly, you find a new cable company. If a private company fucks up your resource management, what are you gonna do? Find another water table?

I mean, look at California and a lot of the west coast. They've bankrupted our natural resources and are steadily trying to suck more water from the rest of America. I don't think putting for profit companies in charge of that will in any way improve the situation. Look at Flint Michigan, where they hired outside 3rd parties to unfuck the system there and their answer was to tell people that unsafe levels of drinking water were safe. Until people lost their shit and then they spent actual money to repair the system. Logging companies only replant what they cut because they're required to, to maybe salvage the disruption to the ecosystem their industry causes.

Look at Nestle. Exxon. Any of the major and large corporations that deal with natural resources. The pipeline where the answer to it running over resource areas and tribal lands was "don't worry, it won't leak." They don't give a fuck if they're destroying the future's planet if it means more bucks today. Natural resources needed to be defend from industry and for-profit ventures. Doing otherwise is like making a fox the Chief Chick Inspector of the Hen House.

Maybe I'm reading too much into your statement, but the sentiment and the trust given to *for profit* enterprises unnerves me. Protections that result in less profits for them and a better quality of life for the rest of us should be the cost of doing business.

[EuchreJack]

Find another cable company...any other jokes?

The problem with the cable company is the same as the Electric company: Only one company owns the lines that you need to get their product.

[nenjin]

I mean, I switched here in my town? At an apartment even. That's not the case everywhere, which is why I qualified it.

[anewaname]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This model also makes sense for things like natural resource management.

Just....no. American businesses demonstrate they'll cut every corner imaginable *for profit.* There is no replacement good for the environment. If your cable company fucks you over, and your government doesn't allow them a monopoly, you find a new cable company. If a private company fucks up your resource management, what are you gonna do? Find another water table?

I mean, look at California and a lot of the west coast. They've bankrupted our natural resources and are steadily trying to suck more water from the rest of America. I don't think putting for profit companies in charge of that will in any way improve the situation. Look at Flint Michigan, where they hired outside 3rd parties to unfuck the system there and their answer was to tell people that unsafe levels of drinking water were safe. Until people lost their shit and then they spent actual money to repair the system. Logging companies only replant what they cut because they're required to, to maybe salvage the disruption to the ecosystem their industry causes.

Look at Nestle. Exxon. Any of the major and large corporations that deal with natural resources. The pipeline where the answer to it running over resource areas and tribal lands was "don't worry, it won't leak." They don't give a fuck if they're destroying the future's planet if it means more bucks today. Natural resources needed to be defend from industry and for-profit ventures. Doing otherwise is like making a fox the Chief Chick Inspector of the Hen House.

Maybe I'm reading too much into your statement, but the sentiment and the trust given to *for profit* enterprises unnerves me. Protections that result in less profits for them and a better quality of life for the rest of us should be the cost of doing business.

I've been mentally raging for years at the idea that these same businesses are looking for deep-sea-resource exploitation rights. It is as if they want to work in the pressurized environment with crappy communications, in order to avoid oversight...

[McTraveller]

I think you misunderstood.  I mean the public owns the natural resources/infrastructure, and then bids out the management to any number of contractors.  This is NOT like cable companies, where the cable companies own the wires and are granted a monopoly.  This is the crux of the lobbying and lawsuits around municipal broadband - these communities want to own the infrastructure and just contract out the maintenance, but the telecom folks want to own the infrastructure.

This is not *exclusive mining rights* contracts - this is things like "we let you mine/lumber/etc. this area on behalf of the owners, the public".  Important distinction.  As far as I know, only roads are really done this way, maybe some localized instances otherwise, but it's not common.  I mean even power companies own their lines, they aren't "state owned."  And I'd argue power is just as critical as roads.

[nenjin]

That's already how it works in many industries.

And it's fraught with corruption and mismanagement. Companies are regularly fined for cutting corners on contracts. Fined. Not prosecuted unless it's gross negligence. (And as one energy reporter put it: "You can't put a corporation in jail." Funny how they can use their money like they're people but when they break the law, suddenly they're a nebulous body that can't be held accountable except financially......)

I don't want to live in that world with anymore of our natural resources. "The public owns it" means very little when it's a commissioner awarding bidding contracts and we only find out months or years later that it was mismanaged. When a company does a shit job on your road ways, that's pretty obvious and immediate. There's delays, poor workmanship, etc...

Now imagine they're in charge of a reservoir, and they're cutting corners and you only found out when a damn bursts, when the water has become polluted or when there's a catastrophe. We're already seeing this in the hydroelectric power grid. Everything from depleting lakes and rivers to generate power to not maintaining the infrastructure.

If prisons and hospitals are any guide on how "for profit works" then we should keep their grubby hands as far away from our natural resources as possible.

I just watched a Last Week Tonight on local utilities. They're required by law to keep prices low since they're in control of power infrastructure. They make their money by starting new development projects and passing that cost off to the consumer. Result? Multi-billion dollar boondogles that only happened because the power companies want higher profits, and the only way to get that money is start new projects of vast scope so they can then offload that to customers as higher monthly fees. See also PG&E and the fact that their poor maintenance is responsible for countless wildfires in California that have killed people, while simultaneously power costs are bankrupting people.

That's ALREADY happening. And with today's political and regulatory climate, anything else we give them would probably have far fewer protections than the laws drafted 70 years ago. No way, no thanks.

[McTraveller]

So just out of curiosity, what's the alternative? How would a truly "public" industry actually be any more accountable than private industries now that are supposedly overseen by public commissions?

I don't see trading one corporate overlord for another to be anything other than a lateral shift... or am I missing something?

This is starting to veer a bit off from economics to politics... maybe there are some economic theories here that apply?

[feelotraveller]

Maybe something like Triple Bottom LIne Accounting?

(Just to move the discussion along, since - unsuprisingly - I think that the profit motive is itself the problem.)

[Duuvian]

I think you misunderstood.  I mean the public owns the natural resources/infrastructure, and then bids out the management to any number of contractors.  This is NOT like cable companies, where the cable companies own the wires and are granted a monopoly.  This is the crux of the lobbying and lawsuits around municipal broadband - these communities want to own the infrastructure and just contract out the maintenance, but the telecom folks want to own the infrastructure.

This is not *exclusive mining rights* contracts - this is things like "we let you mine/lumber/etc. this area on behalf of the owners, the public".  Important distinction.  As far as I know, only roads are really done this way, maybe some localized instances otherwise, but it's not common.  I mean even power companies own their lines, they aren't "state owned."  And I'd argue power is just as critical as roads.

Oh that explains the temp service posting for road construction workers and bad patch jobs in the village then. I guess if you think that's better than careers and benefits. EDIT: Status of local roads: Main roads are pretty good repairs if they are used by the local superbusiness (relative to other local business) which handles huge traffic occasionally, expressways are well done but seems slow progress or something, one spot has been under work for a long time seems like the same every time I drive past. Local roads are awful everywhere I go except state college towns, the capital and The Big City, but maybe because I don't drive around those as often. Mid sized town nearby is awful except for major roads. Score of awful includes drivable at speed limit but zooming around holes in road where necessary to "I hope that's not as deep as it looks"

So just out of curiosity, what's the alternative? How would a truly "public" industry actually be any more accountable than private industries now that are supposedly overseen by public commissions?

I don't see trading one corporate overlord for another to be anything other than a lateral shift... or am I missing something?

This is starting to veer a bit off from economics to politics... maybe there are some economic theories here that apply?

Here is a magic paperwork everyone should know about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(United_States)
The sort of thing a person should be told to practice one time in high school, to obtain some document. Along with writing a practice motion to the court and how to access legal research terminals at universities, which ought to be expanded to local libraries as well so people don't have to drive 2 hours to look up caselaw or pay for lawyer priced software. Take that, profession of lawyers! I say that jokingly, they might think it's a cool idea. Please teach it in the public schools too.

I also wanted to say something skeptical about needing election campaign finance reform that can somehow be effective at reducing impact of donations while making it past existing precedent before public manufacturing industries would sound better to me on a big scale and even then I'd want them to more be price controllers through competition rather than driving everyone out of business, and I'd also want to read more books on it to say whether it was a good plan or not. What would you think about "emergency" industries that only power up with authority when there is a shortage, McTraveller? For example, when those corporates <points at people not in jail> recently almost starved those babies <points at babies> I say half jokingly. When that was on TV news I would do the South Park "They took err jerbs" meme about it, quite tastelessly replacing it with "strved err babies". I now quite sincerely regret doing this on several occasions, though perhaps it would indeed make for a fine episodic social critique.

I mostly meant shuttered industries but that seems like a difficult and expensive thing to have waiting. Maybe buyups of closed plants for mothballing? I dunno, I haven't thought it through or done the work to be qualified to say.

Perhaps in price emergencies also? I would guess rigs can be shuttered for a while due to all the inactive ones around here. That might actually be a better example.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/world/europe/ukraine-russian-oil-embargo.html

Spoiler: From article (click to show/hide)

Once the refiners turn oil into diesel or gasoline, no one can distinguish whether the fuels they ship to Europe and elsewhere come from Russian crude. That means Western motorists who think they are paying more for non-Russian fuel may be mistaken.

“Those molecules, a lot of them are Russian,” Jeff Brown, the president of F.G.E., an energy consulting firm, said of the refined oil products exported to the West.

I think though mostly saying it should be all A or B isn't quite right though, when it could be a mixture of the two and perhaps work better than either.

[nenjin]

I don't see trading one corporate overlord for another to be anything other than a lateral shift... or am I missing something?

I guess my point is the current system already has big short comings (local governments vary wildly in how responsible/corruption free they are) and I don't think making businesses responsible for resource management is going to improve things, and likely result in more corruption/waste of resources/abuse of public trust. Frankly I already think city planners, commissioners and the ones that give them kick backs already belong in jail when they fuck the public over for profit. At least that happened in Flint, Michigan.

[anewaname]

Use of public funds needs to include transparency (oversight by interested parties) or the corrupt get away with it. Judgement by their peers is never enough.

[Naturegirl1999]

Maybe something like Triple Bottom LIne Accounting?

(Just to move the discussion along, since - unsuprisingly - I think that the profit motive is itself the problem.)

this sounds like an amazing idea, my question is how do you quantify how well a company is caring about the environment or people? Profits are numbers and can be easily compared, how will they gauge the other two parameters and how to improve them? To be clear, I like the idea, I’m just having trouble picturing how to “graph” the social and environmental effects, like it’s easy to say profits increased by m [money] this month, but how do you say whether and by how much p [quality for people] or e [environmental impact were affected? I used variables because I remember economics involved lots of equations. I don’t know if I worded this in a correct way, if you need clarification just ask, I agree environment and people should absolutely be considered, I mention graphs since in various shows in movies about companies, the meetings involve discussions of data, and if things can be measured, you can track improvements or declines and attempt to correct as necessary to ensure improvement in all 3 parameters, yes I am aware this is not how one would talk in person about describing this but this is how my brain is thinking about it and I don’t remember what people usually say instead of parameter, it’s been a while since I’ve had a conversation about data, I don’t even think I ever conversed about data with someone in person