Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[eppie]

Hi,

While true, this does take us back to the questions of just what are governmental functions and how inefficient is the government. The idea that, no matter how cheaply you can get something, it's not a bargain if you don't want it, comes into play. I believe that kandrathe has made his position pretty clear. He wants the government to do only the barest minimum. And even that minimum, he wants done at the most local level possible. Roads, water, sewer, gas, electric, education, medical care, etc. can all be sold at a profit, and so he wants to keep the government completely out of them.

Yes, and a perfectly working communist state is more likely than this.

There are, however, two aspects that need to be considered. The first is, will it cost me more to have x furnished by the government than it would in a competitive market (and all the assumptions that carries). I think the answer to that is almost always 'yes'. Even if the efficiency of the government and of industry were the same, the government has the additional overhead of collecting, budgeting, and distributing taxes.

But this is not the most important thing. What we need is stability. Economic fluctuations because of market issues let alone a crisis cause an enormous amount of damage to the economy. Especially in a country like the US (with so many resources and land area) the state could arrange things a lot better.....not cheaper but better in the sense that people could be happier, less stressed etc.
In a country like the Netherlands I don't want a foreign company to own our electricity, gas and water companies (which is partly so already at this moment......ok they are fellow europeans but still. Why spend billions on the army when all an enemy needs to do to is to shut off the border and flip a efw switches. If I pay a government money for the gas I use, I know teh money goes to the government, so back to the people. I much rather have 10 people working the job of 7 then a few foreign share holder to become rich.....even though it costs me a bit more.
I'd rather have 10 people working a bit less hard then 7 working very hard and 3 without a job. The first situation is much better for the economy......and it doesn't even have to be like that......a good manager can make the government 'companies' just as efficient as private ones....and as an added benefit we don't have to see all those commercials of the electra companies on TV.

Another problem is that private companies work with short term goals.....and things like selling the company might be one such goal.
If you say you want to regulate private companies that provide important services (schooling, food, electra, roads) like kandrathe points out often.....you end up with a lot larger group of government employees pushing paper.

In sweden much more things are still arranged on government level and I must say it is a much better situation here than in Holland. On top of that, sweden is more competitive in international business as well.....and I actually think we pay less tax than in Holland.

The second aspect is, who supplies the safety net (which comes with a whole raft of assumptions also). Who pays for the insurance? Who pays for the education? And many others along these lines. If everybody were intelligent, reasonable, capable, foresighted, in short, Jeffersonian, then each would take care of himself. But that is a fantasy. Combined with the almost total disappearance of the extended family, who takes care of those who didn't take care of themselves --whether through their own fault or not. Or do we (society) let them rot?

And, so, we go around the circle one more time.

--Pete

Indeed....and this is the biggest thing I have against Kandrathe's view. It is just not in the nature of people to make a society like he advocates work