(10-16-2009 01:42 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-16-2009 12:46 PM)BleedsHuskieRed Wrote:  As libertarian and anti government as I am, fire departments are one example of government programs that I fully support. It isn't feasible to have private fire service. Both the voters and the politicians failed here. The voters need to realize that they are now less safe and maybe a few extra dollars a year wouldn't hurt them, the politicians should have made cuts. Both are at fault, however it is the voters that will suffer the most.

Actually, it IS feasible. There are places in the USA that do. They typically have the lowest fire insurance rates in the country, becuase they have the best loss experience.

I am not comfortable with the idea of private life and death emergency services, though I imagine there are not a lot of public hospital ambulances anymore.

This is really a six in one hand, half dozen in the other question / answer isn't it? I don't like private companies handling life and death because I wonder if they respond or don't respond based on profitability / if they know the person in the emergency / maybe even they are racist / sexist / or just plain lazy.

But I am not sure a public force really alleviates the above!

(10-16-2009 11:05 AM)Tripster Wrote:  I don't know where GR lives, but here, all insurance companies stay on top of that kind of information and home owners insurance rates are tied directly to how close you live to a Fire Station.

Considering the only place that I have ever heard term "millage" was in Michigan, I would assume he lives there. The fact that he routes for WMU tells me he is in Kalamazoo, or somewhere there abouts, an area I am quite familiar with. That area is VERY conservative. If the local government there was proposing a millage increase, I am pretty sure they exhausted all other options.

(10-16-2009 07:59 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:22 PM)Paul M Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:08 PM)GRPunk Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:06 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The local government entity in question should have cut administrative costs (in whatever way) first before going to the voters for a tax increase.

You think in the current economic conditions voters will approve a tax increase if the government entity hasn't cut its expenses beforehand?



That is total political stupidity. The local government deserves to lose this election.

Awesome. Then the Dems will be in charge of my local government as well.

You don't have a problem with the theft of OTHER peoples money to pay YOUR bills?

Sorry Paul. I appreciate your perspective, but in this case, it's the wrong answer,

GRPunk and his neighbors footed the start up costs for the fire station. They've paid the costs for years to maintain the fire station. And no one else is expected to pay more for his fire station. Everyone is paying for their nearest fire station. It was a reasonable part of their social contract.

However, the government (b/c there is no competition) decided to cut that essential service when funds ran low. They could have cut many other things: mayoral salaries, beautification of local parks, admin support, underage drinking sting operations, etc. I don't know all the details, but there are undoubtedly lots of options.

Instead, they chose to cut an essential, life-saving service. One that has had most of the costs already paid for. We should all appreciate that it was GRPunk and his neighbors who got the raw deal.

That's extortion.

Screw the "social contract"....I prefer to be only bound by contracts that I actually enter into voluntarily. In this case...I have no problem supporting fire protection on a voluntary contract basis. I do however object to paying to protect someone else's home. Are social contracts actually contracts or are they simply just authorized theft?

(10-16-2009 01:42 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-16-2009 12:46 PM)BleedsHuskieRed Wrote:  As libertarian and anti government as I am, fire departments are one example of government programs that I fully support. It isn't feasible to have private fire service. Both the voters and the politicians failed here. The voters need to realize that they are now less safe and maybe a few extra dollars a year wouldn't hurt them, the politicians should have made cuts. Both are at fault, however it is the voters that will suffer the most.

Actually, it IS feasible. There are places in the USA that do. They typically have the lowest fire insurance rates in the country, becuase they have the best loss experience.

This...AND they have an incentive to actually protect your home from fire. Government coercive systems have no incentive since they get to steal from those they serve to run their business. Private security and fire protection is available and is cheaper and more effective than its coercive counterpart. Private agencies focus more on "prevention" of crime and fire than "responding". These services could easily be turned over to the marketplace all over the nation.

(10-16-2009 01:50 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(10-16-2009 01:42 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-16-2009 12:46 PM)BleedsHuskieRed Wrote:  As libertarian and anti government as I am, fire departments are one example of government programs that I fully support. It isn't feasible to have private fire service. Both the voters and the politicians failed here. The voters need to realize that they are now less safe and maybe a few extra dollars a year wouldn't hurt them, the politicians should have made cuts. Both are at fault, however it is the voters that will suffer the most.

Actually, it IS feasible. There are places in the USA that do. They typically have the lowest fire insurance rates in the country, becuase they have the best loss experience.

I am not comfortable with the idea of private life and death emergency services, though I imagine there are not a lot of public hospital ambulances anymore.

This is really a six in one hand, half dozen in the other question / answer isn't it? I don't like private companies handling life and death because I wonder if they respond or don't respond based on profitability / if they know the person in the emergency / maybe even they are racist / sexist / or just plain lazy.

But I am not sure a public force really alleviates the above!

I'd submit that private agencies would have a vested interest in seeing that those that they contract with are protected. The marketplace would use competition as any other business does to improve services. Those that showed the best... product(protection),service(prevention,response)and innovation(equipment,training) would be the leader in that market. Competing agencies would enter into contractual agreements to respond to each others clients when out of their jurisdiction to insure coverage and would respond to those without coverage in goodwill and to increase their standing in the community. Coercive protection services seems to be one of the easiest things to turn over to the marketplace when looking at a more voluntary society.

See, we down here in the South have them good ole redneck boys who love to dress up and play firefighter as volunteers in rural areas for free.

.....no, not knocking them, actually, they do one helluva job. Just playing on idiot yankee stereotypes like what's seen from RobertN. What do you have up north?

You don't need a fire dept. You can deliver your own mail too. You're welcome.

(10-16-2009 02:57 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  I'd submit that private agencies would have a vested interest in seeing that those that they contract with are protected. The marketplace would use competition as any other business does to improve services. Those that showed the best... product(protection),service(prevention,response)and innovation(equipment,training) would be the leader in that market. Competing agencies would enter into contractual agreements to respond to each others clients when out of their jurisdiction to insure coverage and would respond to those without coverage in goodwill and to increase their standing in the community. Coercive protection services seems to be one of the easiest things to turn over to the marketplace when looking at a more voluntary society.

But here is the weak point in your arguement. If they just one time decide that it is not in their best interest or profit model to respond, the person on the other end dies. That person no longer has an ability to support or not support the local private emergency service.

This isn't an appliance repair store with poor customer service that you can ***** about on the internet. This is life and death emergency response with only one chance to save someone.

I'm indeed in West Michigan. The GR's for Grand Rapids (Michigan's second largest city, yet much smaller than Detroit). And, yes, the West Side is quite conservative. Outside of the (relatively) major cities (GR, Kalamazoo, Muskegon...), the burbs and rural areas vote overwhelmingly in the red.

I assume the insurance company keeps tabs on fire stations to use in some sort of matrix they use for quoting rates.

Back to:
"would you consider a government action that costs you money a tax?"

It's still too broad. There are all sorts of government actions, and inaction, that cost the citizens.

The lack of healthcare for all raises the cost of insurance for the rest.

Funding cuts mean salary cuts/job losses for public employees.

Government decisions act to increase/decrease the worth of the dollar, price of gas, stock market.

I wouldn't call any of these situations (or my fire department example) a tax, but I could see how somebody might make that argument.

(10-16-2009 03:51 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(10-16-2009 02:57 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  I'd submit that private agencies would have a vested interest in seeing that those that they contract with are protected. The marketplace would use competition as any other business does to improve services. Those that showed the best... product(protection),service(prevention,response)and innovation(equipment,training) would be the leader in that market. Competing agencies would enter into contractual agreements to respond to each others clients when out of their jurisdiction to insure coverage and would respond to those without coverage in goodwill and to increase their standing in the community. Coercive protection services seems to be one of the easiest things to turn over to the marketplace when looking at a more voluntary society.

But here is the weak point in your arguement. If they just one time decide that it is not in their best interest or profit model to respond, the person on the other end dies. That person no longer has an ability to support or not support the local private emergency service.

This isn't an appliance repair store with poor customer service that you can ***** about on the internet. This is life and death emergency response with only one chance to save someone.

All the arguments against allowing the marketplace to take over these type of functions always end up using the "worst case scenario" as reasoning. I can not imagine the above scenario playing out...but if it did..there is still a viable option...... I was a volunteer on my town's rescue squad for 10 years. We had zero public funding. Yet..We owned a station building... 4 ambulances and first rate crash truck(for heavy rescue) We also owned and maintained a 21 foot Boston Whaler fully certified for water rescue..(we have several rivers and large lakes in the area)... We did ALS and were certified to give fluids,use defib..and push some drugs under the instructions of our hospital ER docs... The unit had a total of 46 members in a town of 6000 and provided 24 hour coverage of our entire town with no one being paid..all members were volunteer. All the funding came from voluntary donations,fund raising and limited fees for certain services. Nothing would stop this type of model to be used again to support those that could not afford public services or even to replace the current public financing model we currently have.

(10-16-2009 05:55 PM)GRPunk Wrote:  I'm indeed in West Michigan. The GR's for Grand Rapids (Michigan's second largest city, yet much smaller than Detroit). And, yes, the West Side is quite conservative. Outside of the (relatively) major cities (GR, Kalamazoo, Muskegon...), the burbs and rural areas vote overwhelmingly in the red.

I assume the insurance company keeps tabs on fire stations to use in some sort of matrix they use for quoting rates.

Back to:
"would you consider a government action that costs you money a tax?"

It's still too broad. There are all sorts of government actions, and inaction, that cost the citizens.

The lack of healthcare for all raises the cost of insurance for the rest.

Funding cuts mean salary cuts/job losses for public employees.

Government decisions act to increase/decrease the worth of the dollar, price of gas, stock market.

I wouldn't call any of these situations (or my fire department example) a tax, but I could see how somebody might make that argument.

GR...My company did lots of business a few years ago making desk parts for Steelcase...in GR. Unfortunately they moved much of it to Canada and closed down their operation here in NC, in Fletcher. I sure hated to see them go away. Losing that business 2 years ago was a huge blow to us that we have not recovered from.

(10-15-2009 04:48 PM)GRPunk Wrote:  Thank you for voting down the fire department millage to save money.
Instead of paying about 15 bucks a year in property taxes to keep to keep each of the stations open and firefighters working, I now get to pay an additonal $300 a year in home owners insurance because of the increased distance to the nearest fire station. Way to think that one through.
I suppose some may be glad the private sector will be getting 20 times the money instead of the greedy unionized fire department.

Maybe I'm just an old country boy, but I need some help understanding your numbers.

Am I correct in understanding that closing the fire station saves $15 /year per household in taxes? If so, I'm trying to figure out what combination of how much it costs to run the fire station, divided by how many homes are impacted, gets me to $15/year.

Actuarially, a back of the envelope calculation would indicate that we're looking at an expectation of a $60,000 increase in expected damage to your house over 50 years as a result of increased distance from the fire station. How much further will you be? How much longer will the response time be? What are the before and after numbers?

And my other question would be how much did they cut their own salaries, or the size of their administrative staffs, or any non-essential services, before they started cutting basic services?

(10-16-2009 10:31 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-16-2009 07:59 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:22 PM)Paul M Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:08 PM)GRPunk Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:06 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The local government entity in question should have cut administrative costs (in whatever way) first before going to the voters for a tax increase.
You think in the current economic conditions voters will approve a tax increase if the government entity hasn't cut its expenses beforehand?

That is total political stupidity. The local government deserves to lose this election.

Awesome. Then the Dems will be in charge of my local government as well.

You don't have a problem with the theft of OTHER peoples money to pay YOUR bills?

Sorry Paul. I appreciate your perspective, but in this case, it's the wrong answer,
GRPunk and his neighbors footed the start up costs for the fire station. They've paid the costs for years to maintain the fire station. And no one else is expected to pay more for his fire station. Everyone is paying for their nearest fire station. It was a reasonable part of their social contract.
However, the government (b/c there is no competition) decided to cut that essential service when funds ran low. They could have cut many other things: mayoral salaries, beautification of local parks, admin support, underage drinking sting operations, etc. I don't know all the details, but there are undoubtedly lots of options.
Instead, they chose to cut an essential, life-saving service. One that has had most of the costs already paid for. We should all appreciate that it was GRPunk and his neighbors who got the raw deal.
That's extortion.

That's what governments always do. Because there is no competition and no profit motive to force discipline on them. For all the blame that the profit motive gets from those on the left, it is really a valuable disciplinary tool to keep private enterprises focusing on the proper goals. Those that fail to do so may give the temporary illusion of profitability (see Enron), but it doesn't last. Show me a private enterprise that has consistently screwed over any significant group of stakeholders and has continued to prosper over a long period.

If Obama has his way, at the end of the day this is who is going to be running your health care. Makes you feel all warm and tingly inside, right?

Wait. Are you guys actually saying that the fire department should be privatized? Are you guys kidding or do you actually believe that pay-for-play fire fighting is a good idea?

(10-16-2009 02:39 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

(10-16-2009 07:59 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:22 PM)Paul M Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:08 PM)GRPunk Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:06 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The local government entity in question should have cut administrative costs (in whatever way) first before going to the voters for a tax increase.

You think in the current economic conditions voters will approve a tax increase if the government entity hasn't cut its expenses beforehand?



That is total political stupidity. The local government deserves to lose this election.

Awesome. Then the Dems will be in charge of my local government as well.

You don't have a problem with the theft of OTHER peoples money to pay YOUR bills?

Sorry Paul. I appreciate your perspective, but in this case, it's the wrong answer,

GRPunk and his neighbors footed the start up costs for the fire station. They've paid the costs for years to maintain the fire station. And no one else is expected to pay more for his fire station. Everyone is paying for their nearest fire station. It was a reasonable part of their social contract.

However, the government (b/c there is no competition) decided to cut that essential service when funds ran low. They could have cut many other things: mayoral salaries, beautification of local parks, admin support, underage drinking sting operations, etc. I don't know all the details, but there are undoubtedly lots of options.

Instead, they chose to cut an essential, life-saving service. One that has had most of the costs already paid for. We should all appreciate that it was GRPunk and his neighbors who got the raw deal.

That's extortion.

Screw the "social contract"....I prefer to be only bound by contracts that I actually enter into voluntarily. In this case...I have no problem supporting fire protection on a voluntary contract basis. I do however object to paying to protect someone else's home. Are social contracts actually contracts or are they simply just authorized theft?

Wow. How very sad.

(10-17-2009 03:11 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(10-16-2009 02:39 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

(10-16-2009 07:59 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:22 PM)Paul M Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:08 PM)GRPunk Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:06 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The local government entity in question should have cut administrative costs (in whatever way) first before going to the voters for a tax increase.

You think in the current economic conditions voters will approve a tax increase if the government entity hasn't cut its expenses beforehand?



That is total political stupidity. The local government deserves to lose this election.

Awesome. Then the Dems will be in charge of my local government as well.

You don't have a problem with the theft of OTHER peoples money to pay YOUR bills?

Sorry Paul. I appreciate your perspective, but in this case, it's the wrong answer,

GRPunk and his neighbors footed the start up costs for the fire station. They've paid the costs for years to maintain the fire station. And no one else is expected to pay more for his fire station. Everyone is paying for their nearest fire station. It was a reasonable part of their social contract.

However, the government (b/c there is no competition) decided to cut that essential service when funds ran low. They could have cut many other things: mayoral salaries, beautification of local parks, admin support, underage drinking sting operations, etc. I don't know all the details, but there are undoubtedly lots of options.

Instead, they chose to cut an essential, life-saving service. One that has had most of the costs already paid for. We should all appreciate that it was GRPunk and his neighbors who got the raw deal.

That's extortion.

Screw the "social contract"....I prefer to be only bound by contracts that I actually enter into voluntarily. In this case...I have no problem supporting fire protection on a voluntary contract basis. I do however object to paying to protect someone else's home. Are social contracts actually contracts or are they simply just authorized theft?

Wow. How very sad.

What is sad about wanting to be responsible for your own property and expecting others to do the same? I would BTW have no problem voluntarily contributing to a fund to help others. I just would appreciate the opportunity to be "asked" not just be stolen from.

(10-17-2009 02:47 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(10-16-2009 10:31 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-16-2009 07:59 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:22 PM)Paul M Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:08 PM)GRPunk Wrote:  

(10-15-2009 07:06 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The local government entity in question should have cut administrative costs (in whatever way) first before going to the voters for a tax increase.
You think in the current economic conditions voters will approve a tax increase if the government entity hasn't cut its expenses beforehand?

That is total political stupidity. The local government deserves to lose this election.

Awesome. Then the Dems will be in charge of my local government as well.

You don't have a problem with the theft of OTHER peoples money to pay YOUR bills?

Sorry Paul. I appreciate your perspective, but in this case, it's the wrong answer,
GRPunk and his neighbors footed the start up costs for the fire station. They've paid the costs for years to maintain the fire station. And no one else is expected to pay more for his fire station. Everyone is paying for their nearest fire station. It was a reasonable part of their social contract.
However, the government (b/c there is no competition) decided to cut that essential service when funds ran low. They could have cut many other things: mayoral salaries, beautification of local parks, admin support, underage drinking sting operations, etc. I don't know all the details, but there are undoubtedly lots of options.
Instead, they chose to cut an essential, life-saving service. One that has had most of the costs already paid for. We should all appreciate that it was GRPunk and his neighbors who got the raw deal.
That's extortion.

That's what governments always do. Because there is no competition and no profit motive to force discipline on them. For all the blame that the profit motive gets from those on the left, it is really a valuable disciplinary tool to keep private enterprises focusing on the proper goals. Those that fail to do so may give the temporary illusion of profitability (see Enron), but it doesn't last. Show me a private enterprise that has consistently screwed over any significant group of stakeholders and has continued to prosper over a long period.

If Obama has his way, at the end of the day this is who is going to be running your health care. Makes you feel all warm and tingly inside, right?

Wait. Are you guys actually saying that the fire department should be privatized? Are you guys kidding or do you actually believe that pay-for-play fire fighting is a good idea?

No..."marketized" not privatized. Privatization usually involves some government granted monopoly. I would prefer that these services be open to an unfettered marketplace.