First, I don't have any buddies at Haliburton <s>

Second, we are talking about outsourcing work the government wants done in a war zone. Not exactly a test case for private enterprise, given the security situation.

I was talking about he role of government in our daily lives. Outsourcing implies government control ( they define and award the contract ) My point wasn't about outsourcing things the government had decided to do, but the role of government in deciding what should be done.

The fact that government screws up outsourcing rather underlines the point




>I used to think like this too. But I've opened my eyes to reality within the last 6 yrs. Have you seen the documentary "Iraq for Sale"? Raised a quite a number of interesting points. Just to name a couple:
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>- The most heart-breaking point was the engineer who broke down while talking. He tested the supposed clean water your buddies at Halliburton were providing to the base he was at. The water was heavily contaminated wtih pathinogins (sp). Enough that he thought it would affect the health of the soldiers who were bathing in this water long after they returned home. Of course Halliburton got a slap on the wrist when a study showed that I think 26 of 28 bases that had water supplied by Halliburton, had heavily contaminated water.
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>- I don't remember which company. But they interviewed hirees of one who disussed the 4 star Kuwait hotel they were put up in. The 5 course dinners provided, etc. Of course all the contracts that were hired for were cost plus. So the more that was spent, the more the taxpayers were charged. So the company spared no expense whatsoever. This included having trucks drive empty from city to city, so the taxpayers would foot the bill for lots of travelling miles for no reason.
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>Our govt today is outsourced far more then it ever, ever has been. Do you think it is operating more efficently then before?
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>Once the profit motive enters the picture, quality of services has decreased. I'm not aware of any govt function that has been performed better once it has been outsourced.
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>The "i have mine caused I worked hard for it, it's their problem they don't have their's" argument used to work for me. Not anymore.
>>>>>With "Do these ever come up for public debate?" I meant do these ever get on the agenda of any policymaking public talk... place, i.e. do they ever get listed as issues anywhere? For instance, the immigration and gay marriages were both listed and discussed everywhere. So did the fate of Social Security. Was the fate of FCC or SEC discussed? Was the issue of paid vacations discussed? We've seen that there's a huge discrepancy between what vacations are guaranteed here and in other developed countries - seems to be that both parties don't think that's an issue, so we don't have it tossed around in the media, nobody seems to mind.
>>>>>
>>>>>Or let's try something that hurts more: companies outsourcing jobs probably still have the tax benefits they got for creating the original jobs here. Which party will pick that issue and push it through the media?
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>>>>I think it is more a question on some issues of who you expect to fix it. Paid vacations for anything but government employees are not the governements to gaurentee. They are the subjst of discussion in labor negotiations all the time and are part of the incentive package in the job market.
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>>>IOW, that area is lawless... outlawed... outside the law... ah, it's unregulated (is that the proper PC expression?). Nice to see that capitalism leaves such an open range for class struggle :).
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>>>>The FCC and SEC are subject to continuous congressional oversight (there are committees for that ) of the peoples representatives even it 90% of the people don't know what the letter stand for <s>
>>>>
>>>>News media make their living alerting people to issues they think the public cares about (or should care about ) but the public can decide for itself whether or not it does in fact care.
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>>>I wish they were alerting, but it seems that in most of the cases they just regurgitate the party agenda (plural, due to lack of dual in Latin). There's a huge blind spot covered with Runaway Bride Saga Syndrome.
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>>>>It is not part of the culture of the country that every problem requires a government mandated solution. I understand there are those who would like it otherwise, but I feel pretty comfortable with the idea that there is a lot of interaction between humans that is not under the control or supervision of the nomenklatura.
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>>>Then it surprises me even more that the 51 administrations take care to get involved into personal issues like the altitude of the trouser belt (that one didn't pass the other chamber in Richmond, VA, only because it was widely ridiculed in the press), whether one would be allowed to sleep in the living room (same location, ban was passed), whether one would be allowed to stay on a beach during a storm (city ordnance, you must leave), whether one is allowed to curse on the main street (is not!), to define what marriage is, to ban buying tobacco online (but allow porn to the same population by just clicking "I'm 18 or older") etc etc.
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>>>Yet the same set of governments is thoroughly unable/unwilling/uncaring to solve a few basic issues, like health care system, speed of INS, media monopolization...
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>>It is exactly because of the legislative idiocy you site that we don't want the government regulating/controlling/"helping" in more areas of our lives.
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>>Let them pass pay raises for themselves and resolutions designating this national radish week. I don't see where a group of people who couldn't find real jobs so are living off the public <s> are better qualified that people who actually run the economy to decide how we should live.
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>>"The government governs best which governs least."
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>>Socialism presumes there are those who "know better" who will spend our money better than we do. Sorry, not interested in another "workers' paradise" <bg>