cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/39109347
https://quack.social/notes/afuub1fs51g7033c
also they are more prpductive when they have more workers
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The entire point of government is to correct for market failures. Public services shouldn’t try to make a profit, because if something were profitable the private sector would’ve provided it already.
The “profit” of a government service comes in the form of positive externalities.
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Also look at the Detroit police department. Once OCP took over, they created ED-209s which, with their efficient AI algorithms and superior firepower, will replace the current cost inefficient human workforce with one that will work for free.
It’s not profitable to pay someone to drive a truck out to the most remote rural mailboxes in America, but we do it because if we didn’t then someone could die for lack of their lifesaving medications getting delivered. FedEx sure as shit wouldn’t run that route without it being prohibitively expensive for the resident.
they should explicitly not make a profit. they should reinvest anything left over in infrastructure improvements.
In fact, it would be detrimental to their budget to do so. If I’m budgeting various government services and see that a specific service is consistently ending the year with a lot of unspent money, I’ll lower their budget so that the money can be spent where it’s needed.
This is actually a bad thing that leads to wasteful spending. Use it or lose it budgeting creates perverse incentives to continuously spend.
This is so accurate. I have been a gov employee for 15 years and the “use it or lose it” always fills the supply areas with the dumbest shit possible
As someone who has worked in the public sector for nearly two decades, this is spot on. The real fix would be to modify government accounting laws so that appropriated funding doesn’t just expire at the end of any given fiscal year, or at a bare minimum make fiscal years longer than 12 months and have them overlap each other to some extent.
I think it’s easy to misunderstand the difference between appropriated money (money someone is allowed to spend) and spent money (money that’s used, adds to the debt, etc). If you do something like allow a large portion of unspent allocation to roll over to future years (like… 95%) then some departments/agencies/etc will save up huge stockpiles of allocation - like places that will need to replace a satellite or renovate a large office building, or buy a new piece of land, or… Etc. This doesn’t add anything to the national debt, but makes for a scary headline - which is practically the worst thing for Congress.
The likely outcome would be lower spending, but there’s the faintest possibility that every civil servant in the whole government simultaneously decides that this is the year to renovate their office building, buy new computers, upgrade the coffee machine, and stock up on printer ink… And that would be very expensive, that year.
Government departments don’t get to roll over money, that’s partially the problem.
You’re right, I didn’t consider that viewpoint. However, I think this problem might not always be the case, especially in a nation with few problems related to corruption or general lack of checks and balances. If you have functioning oversight and annual presentation of projected expenditures, frivolous spending shouldn’t be a major issue.
Found this amusing earlier 😉
I agree, but please stop doing the clapping thing, it’s really annoying.
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yeah, but that’s why they privatise public services. Worked out so well for australia, to this date /s cough telstra cough
They are paid by citizens in the form of taxes in a sane society.
Edit: Including companies and billionaires, which should take the lead.
Billionaires should not exist in a sane society. Money isn’t just a prize for doing well, it’s unelected power, and people use it as an excuse to be selfish and shitty.
It’s like Reddit karma IRL.
It’s a shitty narrow minded take
In long term they do have to bring some profit, otherwise they’re net negative to society
…otherwise they’re net negative to society
It’s a public service. The end goal is the service, not profit. Services help society, profit only helps investors.
Not everything in society needs to be profitable. Elder care is extremely unprofitable to society, they’ve already provided all the profit they can, now they’re just an expense on society. So why don’t we just drop them off in the middle of nowhere and let the animals eat them like a dying farm cat? It actually works out better because their kids can inherit the parents wealth without the parents using all that money to live through their retirement. The kids can take it the moment their parents are retired and immediately invest it. It’s way better for the economy because you won’t have a retirement investment that slowly dwindles until it’s gone. It’s a sudden infusion of cash that will pay way more dividends over time.
Noone says it has to be financial profit.
In long term they do have to bring some profit, otherwise they’re net negative to society.
You did, pretty succinctly. Profit is financial profit, that’s it’s definition. I think you mean a benefit which may or may not be profitable. Social services are beneficial to society, not always profitable.
A non “financial profit” is also called a service.
