evilgenius wrote:I've worked for some big corporations. When I was young I used to buy the line about government being incompetent, and big government being a bogeyman. Then I worked for those big corporations and realized they were almost all more inefficient than the government. Not only did they not have to attend to the various stakeholders with greater attention, but they couldn't do even what they did do as efficiently as the government, if you extrapolated that out to the size the government dealt with. I only discovered this because I was willing to see it. I had to dispense with the easy emotions. Big business usually has an image of success beyond that of the government because it only has, really, to please a very small group of people.
Why only point at big business? Because it fits your belief system?
Sure, corporations grow old, and some even die, like people.
But that's just part of the life cycle. Overall, smaller businesses grow faster than bigger businesses, and create a lot of the technology that ends up really changing things.
OTOH, bad government departments rarely die the death they deserve, no matter how inefficient they get. Too little competition and too little accountability.
To look at big government institutions overall, what they spend, what they actually do *** (vs. what they say or actually have private companies DO -- while all they do is create big spreadsheets for $billions, while reporting on what the private companies do) is generally so wasteful that to call big government efficient overall is just silly.
*** Examples: the US EPA and FDA. Not a lot of monitoring themselves. Lots and lots of money spent though. Nearly every time there is a US food crisis/scare, per the CSPAN coverage of the congressional testimony, there has been inadequate monitoring in the field by government itself.
Lots of "self monitoring" is done. That would be fine if all companies were completely honest. Naturally the crooks don't report themselves. Only the FDA and congress acts surprised.
I don't pay taxes wanting to have government that says (Ayn Rand novel style) "I couldn't help it" and "It wasn't my fault" while finding out they do very little with their funds. I especially don't want to call that "efficient".
Sure, there are some small town DMV's that, for example, are surprisingly efficient. To the point they remind me of the way a good company runs. But that's the EXCEPTION to the rule -- i.e. why it's surprising.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.