Has privitization of anything worked out?

[edhopper]

Seriously, I don't know every case where the government has privatized things. I suppose it has resulted in lower costs somewhere, but I suspect the services are diminished as well. Is there a case when replace public employees and/or agencies with private contractors/companies improved things for people who needed the service.

And some of the areas they have privatized like the military and National security seem absurd.

[blm]

1. DefSec Dick Cheney privatized logistics in 1991. How did that work out for USS Cole?

How has it been working out for Halliburton/KBR?

Corporate media continues their disinterest in this subject.

[edhopper]

2. Yes, thanks,

I think people should feel free to post bad results from privitization on this thread as well.

[brush]

28. It worked out extremely well for Halliburton

Their stock price rose some 3000% while Darth Cheney was in office.

That torture-loving bastard should be in jail for torture as well as for this montrous conflict of interest.

[AngryAmish]

3. British Leyland

[bobclark86]

40. Ouch... That hurt.

I think about all those poor Triumph Spitfires, TR6s and GT6s that could have been spectacular...

[libtodeath]

4. It depends on who you talk to,some would say yes because they profited at the expense of the public

[edhopper]

6. I explitictly

mean a benefit to the public, not the enrichment of the privateers.

[brush]

30. Just wait until they get their hands on the Post Office (the repugs are working on it)

You think a stamp is expensive now, wait until FedEx or UPS closes Post Offices in favor of their centralized locations where we'll probably have to pay to pick up our own mail, or pay even more through the nose for every third day delivery because they sure won't be bothered with delivering daily to every mail box in the country, even rural ones, like the Post Office does now.

[meanit]

5. With the exception of contracting perhaps new public building construction projects

or somethings of that sort, privatization of services is complete BS for the day to day operation of public agencies or the military, etc.

For-profit privatization vs. non-profit public run: Somehow the right expects people to believe that for-profit is cheaper and of better quality....

[edhopper]

8. And in general

large building projects have always been contracted out. I think I am thinking about ongoing services.

[librechik]

7. works out really well for somebody. Just not us. n/t

[Beearewhyain]

9. As far as saving money

this report would say resoundingly No. If it doesn't save money then one of the major arguments for outsourcing is moot. In addition, I believe there have been additional reports that even the services provided by privatized government are done less efficiently though I don't have that report on hand. I'll look around.

[justanaverageguy]

10. it might be on a smaller scale than you are expecting.....

but when the city I live in privatized garbage collection it worked out GREAT !!! Every house got a nice looking trash can to put out on the street instead of the rusted out cans we all had, or no can at all which animals would get into. it was a good deal for everyone.

[FarCenter]

11. Our garbage pickup has improved since it was privatized

Lower cost, more days, and single-stream recycling.

[duffyduff]

12. Nope unless it's to line the pockets of privateers. n/t

[geek tragedy]

13. Internet access. Also, ask anyone in Argentina with a phone line.

Old state-owned phone enterprise was a legendary disaster.

Some things work better in public hands (basic health care), some are better in private (communications), some are best in combination (e.g. package delivery)

[edhopper]

18. But we never had state run telecom

just regulated. i am talking about here in the US, and i am taking about Gov. agencies that are privatized.

Though i bet there are some European countries with good public telecoms.

[geek tragedy]

19. There's a good reason privatization is a toxic word

in the US.

[karadax]

14. Sandy Springs, Georgia ?

From 2011 but still a pretty good read to get some perspective from the city level.

Sandy Springs, Georgia: The City That Privatized Nearly Everything

In 2005, decades after Sandy Springs first attempted annexation, the Republican-dominated Georgia state legislature allowed the affluent city, located adjacent to Atlanta, to break off and become a largely autonomous, self-governing entity.

Scrambling to ready themselves for the division, Sandy Springs effectively privatized the large majority of the municipal services by entering into a public-private partnership with CH2M HILL, a full-service operations company that now controls nearly all of the once-public sector, from road maintenance to cleaning up trash in the park.

"Nobody likes change," Sandy Springs Mayor and former economist Eva Galambos told Reason, a libertarian magazine. "But, if your city is fiscally bankrupt, there may have to be some change."

more at the link..

[One_Life_To_Give]

15. Privatization of Tax Collection

They promptly slapped leans on several politicians and politically connected people for long overdue taxes. Of-course that couldn't be allowed to remain.

Privatization often means you get exactly what you contract for. And frequently we have alot of implied stuff that doesn't get included in the contract. Those little things you overlook are where the privateers can cash in. Operating a maintaining a bridge for 20 yrs seems simple. But did you specify it's condition and suitability for continued use after 20yrs. Or can I skimp on maintenance such that it barely lasts 20 yrs and is unfit the day after?

[Savannahmann]

16. There are several examples

One poster mentioned garbage collection. I'll mention one, Highway maintenance. Jobs are put out as needing done, and the contractors bid on the jobs, and the lowest bid (reasonable) wins. By not having crews standing around waiting for either funding, or work, the people of the communities and states save money. For some regular and routine jobs, the county still maintains their own staff, including grading servicing of dirt roads in the county. They have crews that service them on a rotating schedule. For larger construction or repair jobs, they put the job out and take the bids from the contractors.

Some things like that are saving money, because those things are sporadic and oftentimes struggle to get funding. All of your funding would go up in smoke just maintaining a sufficient crew to work the jobs, forget actually doing them.

Roadside maintenance as well. You don't need to mow the grass in the median or the shoulders year round, even in Georgia. But they do need to be mowed from time in the spring/summer/early fall. By contracting that out, you let the contractor worry about the machines, the people, and the jobs. It saves the people money because they aren't keeping folks on the payroll during the down months or wasting fuel, and wear and tear on the machines mowing lawns that aren't growing.

The USN runs several underway replenishment ships. These ships have mostly civilian crews, contractors, with a few Military people there for oversight and to make sure that things are done to specifications. It is a little known but true fact that civilian crews do the jobs with much fewer people. The Navy expects to have three watches, in other words three shifts, on ships. Civilian crews turn to and work whenever there is work to be done. The civilians like it because they are making a good wage, the navy likes it they are moving supplies regularly and far more cheaply.

http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/sc/web/series/809/mighty-ships/139226/usns-robert-e-peary

Civilian captain, and crew with just enough Military to keep the work on the specifications required.

So yes, privatization has worked to the benefit of the taxpayers in many instances. However all those instances have one simple thing in common. They are contracts that are let, and Government personnel are there to provide oversight of the operations to insure work to the standard. Also all the contracts and work is done in full view of the public.

Some states post the contracts at the State House or the County Seat. So everyone knows who is being paid what for the work.

[badtoworse]

17. The power business is a great example

I did projects and business development in the power business internationally for about ten years. The country list includes Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Ireland and the UK. In countries where the government owned and operated the power industry, electricity was substantially more expensive, the plants were poorly maintained, less reliable and used many more people than a well run operation typically used. Argentina and the UK privatized their electric generation in the 1990's. In both cases, electricity prices dropped substantially (This was expected). In Argentina's case, the prices dropped so much more than expected that some early buyers of generating plants actually lost money. Ratepayers in both countries benefited substantially.

Incidentally, I spent a lot of time in Colombia. I asked one of the locals why Bogota had reasonably clean streets and neighborhoods, yet Barranquilla was a mess. They told me that in Barranquilla, government workers pick up the trash, but in Bogota, private contractors do it.

Draw your own conclusions.

[edhopper]

20. I wonder if there is a difference in culture

of Government workers. Despite the reputation, here in the US all the Gov workers i know work hard. They do their job and put in their time. In other countries, Gov jobs are sometimes regarded as patronage in some very corrupt systems.

[meaculpa2011]

22. I was in Peru when the government ran...

electric power, telecom, gasoline... disaster.

Here on Long Island the state runs the power utility. In August of 2012 a LIPA technician knocked on my door and said that my power would be out for about thirty minutes because he had to swap out my meter. It was part of a Meter Modernization program. After an hour without electricity he informed me that he did not have the proper tool needed to remove the lock, but another crew would be back in an hour. Fast forward 15 months and dozens of phone calls.

Yesterday I noticed a construction worker in my driveway looking up at my power line. He was from a private company contracted to implement the modernization. My meter and power line to the utility pole were replaced and the power was out for less than ten minutes.

LIPA, the state run utility came into being in the 90s with the promise of better service and lower costs. Nope. The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy proved that political cronies are no more sensitive to public needs than the corporate oligarchs.

I'm switching to solar this month and ditching LIPA.

Of course, in NYC many ongoing functions are privatized and the results have mostly been reduced services and a much higher degree of corruption.

Mixed bag.

[badtoworse]

24. LIPA was created because LILCO did such a bad job after Hurricane Gloria in 1985

Andrew Cuomo's father Mario Cuomo was the governor who put pushed for LIPA. It's ironic that because of the crappy job LIPA did after Sandy, Andrew Cuomo was talking about ditching LIPA.

[meaculpa2011]

26. After Gloria our power was off two days.

After Sandy our power was off three and a half weeks.

In between hurricanes we lose power periodically for hours and days at a time.

In 2011 our power was off for six days. When a crew finally arrived, they only had to flip a breaker switch on the transformer.

We have lost power at least once for a day or more every year since 2003.

[LWolf]

23. Yet

I get my electricity from a non-profit co-op, and we get cheaper rates and better service than those buying their power from Edison.

That's not "the government," but it's not private for-profit, either.

[badtoworse]

25. Coops frequently offer a good deal, but they are, in fact, private (owned by their members)...

... and as you say, they're not relevant to this discussion.

[LWolf]

27. I included my co-op

because we don't HAVE any government utilities to compare to, at least, not where I've lived. That's the closest thing we've got; "owned by their members," which is similar to what government is SUPPOSED to be: a body representing their citizens and responsible to them. The co-op, responsible to their members, does a better job.

[badtoworse]

33. Where do they actually get their power? Do they own generation?

Most coops buy their power from privately owned power companies and get a better price because they're buying bulk quantities of power at transmission line voltages. The larger coops (e.g. Old Dominion, Seminole, Oglethorpe) do own their own generation, but they are the exception.

[LWolf]

36. They buy it from a variety of places.

I can choose where my power comes from. Not literally, of course, but my piece of the pie is spent getting power from the sources I choose; those choices depend on what is currently available.

One choice is from a methane-burning plant that the co-op partially owns; it's burning the methane generated by a landfill.

[Egalitarian Thug]

35. Sure it is, just ask the poeple that lived in the City of LA during the Enron-Evergreen

legalized blackmail of 2000-2001.

We were the stupid, archaic, Luddites that couldn’t see the wonders that the sale and financialization of public services would bring into this brave new world.

When these keepers of the private faith decided it would be profitable to steal $10B, those poor unfortunate souls that were still trapped in the death-grip of government in the form of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power didn't see their rates explode 300% or more, didn't have a single blackout and only a handful of brownouts. No, these foolish slaves to the man were subjected to months of power and water and the head of DWP didn't even get a seven figure bonus for ripping millions of people off.

[badtoworse]

37. What publically owned resources were actually privatized? None that I'm aware of.

Last edited Sat Dec 7, 2013, 01:34 PM - Edit history (1)

LADWP is still publically owned and so are SMUD and IID. PG&E. SoCalEd and SDGE (the three major electric utilities) were and still are privately owned. Yes, there were abuses by Enron in the 2000 timeframe, but I should point out that they occured under the rules set by the California Independent System Operator, an agency created by the California state government. (The rules have since been changed to prevent a reoccurrence.)

BTW, people love the LADWP. Sure they do:

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/07/11/ladwp-ranked-13th-most-hated-company-in-america/

[diane in sf]

38. Not the case in CA, people with public utilities generally pay around 20% less.

[badtoworse]

39. Publically owned utilities and cooperatives frequently have better rates

The OP asked whether privatization of anything had ever worked. There is no question that the answer is yes. In the power business, there are examples of where it has and also examples of where public ownership is better. I don't believe you can make a blanket statement either way.

[MrScorpio]

21. For the privatizers, profiteers, crooks and Wall Street parasites, You bet!

For every one else, not so much.

[BlueCaliDem]

29. Nope. And even if services were privatized (like trash pick-up), it's done according to

government guidelines and are strictly regulated. But fully privatized? I can't think of a single government program in this country surrendering 100% to privatization and people benefiting from it. None. Zilch.

[valerief]

31. I think it always works out for the already-wealthy. nt

[rucky]

32. The only way they can do it cheaper and still be profitable...

is by cutting corners.

The model is flawed.

[Egalitarian Thug]

34. The best I've seen personally is private doing not-worse than the job the government

employees were doing. Unlike some of the stories here, in Cave Creek when they privatized trash collection the prices and service stayed the same, but from the community perspective we now have 40 ton trucks from four different companies driving through our neighborhoods, breaking our roads and disturbing the peace, from 6 AM until after dark four days a week.

And of course, the drivers are paid shit wages, about $400 p/wk less than they'd be making in a government collection service.