re: Folks, Why Are Government Employees So Scared To Work In The Private Sector?

It is true for some. Most I work with it isn’t true though. My job requires a certain amount of production each day. I bust my arse to be the best at my job. I make just shy of 100k working from home for the Federal Government. I help people everyday and love it.

It is amazing how much more productive the private companies put into place across Louisiana to replace DMV offices are. There is one in Hammond that has maybe 4 or 5 employees that replaced probably 20 when the state operated it and they wait is next to nothing. When the state ran it you might spend 3 or 4 hours in there to do the simplest things.

So you equate the federal workers that keep major programs and research going that are currently impacted by shutdown to state-level DMV offices?

So now let’s talk about volatility if you are going with that metaphor, which is a stretch.

You mention the positive aspects of risk, and escalating risk-reward. That works with a robust market that has multiple competitors and accommodates failure by allowing some to fail while reaping benefit from the competitive successes.

You can’t do that with food inspection, flight safety, or the Coast Guard. Some things minimize risk in order to guarantee acceptable returns.

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which is a stretch.

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How so?

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flight safety

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John McCain's flight record notwithstanding.

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food inspection

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The Flint water supply notwithstanding?

Look, both the public and private sectors have their successes and failures. Instances of direct crossover provide the closest thing to apples-apples comparatives. VA vs private medical systems is an example.

Please explain your anecdotal example of McCain’s flight record and state-level decisions on water supply as they pertain the federal workers affected by this shutdown.

Or were you just throwing crap at the wall?

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In some case, yes. Others are "inherently Governmental" such as "regulation and enforcement". One private entity regulating another is not an acceptable situation, in most people's eyes.

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This is not so clear cut in 2019. Regulation of companies can happen via law or via consumer. The latter is easily influenced by instant access social media and news. Basically, it would be easy and lucrative for a watch dog company to take to Facebook and Twitter if it found violations that the public would care about.

This was obviously impossible 100 years ago and we needed regulations. Today, I'm thinking not so much.

If you crowd-source regulation enforcement then you get mob rule, where things that are against the law but tolerated by the majority (who may be the beneficiary) are simply not reported.

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You can’t do that with food inspection, flight safety, or the Coast Guard. Some things minimize risk in order to guarantee acceptable returns.“

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Of course you can. In fact, it is done continually. You think airlines don't monitor safety. You think Chipotle is not intensely interested in maintenance of food quality/cleanliness?

The presupposition is that government does a better job as an overseeing inspector because it "has no dog in the fight". That is a reasonable assumption. Generally such agencies do a fine job, as long as inspectors/services are both competent and agenda-free. Unfortunately they can underperform also. That and the board's familiarity with Susan Hedman/EPA/Flint and McCain/FlightSafety was the reason for the respective anecdotes.

I can cite example after example of government agencies (perhaps well-meaning) involved in healthcare where underperformance or agenda led to poor result. CDC, the VA, CMS etc.

We are also all presumably aware of apparent targeting of citizens by Fed Agencies during the last administration.

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Of course you can. In fact, it is done continually. You think airlines don't monitor safety. You think Chipotle is not intensely interested in maintenance of food quality/cleanliness?

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Your examples are simply flawed. Of course airlines monitor safety and food vendors monitor food quality, but they monitor it from the vantage point of “Will I get in trouble” and “will it impact my sales/profits”. External oversight provides the other side. Restaurants get closed constantly by external health inspectors that would otherwise be content to remain open. Not all are as altruistic as you give Chipotle credit for.

As to the rest of your response, it begins to incorporate too many tangents and boogeymen to continue:

1. Hedman and Flint. Although the EPA should have done more, the Flint water crisis was a failure of local and state leadership. Those responsible for providing clean water to the citizens failed. The feds shouldn’t do everything; the country is designed for states to have some responsibilities and for feds to have others. Where the EPA failed was in not being aggressive enough in oversight and forcing corrective action AFTER the state/local failures. This example speaks to the need to ensure better management of federal responses, but isn’t a smoking gun that shows a systemic failure.

Healthcare. That’s a peripheral topic to this thread. That’s a political “who should provide it” discussion, which is a different thread.

On your last point, that’s a different topic again. You use it as an example of federal overreach. It’s a federal, criminal investigation. I have to assume in any plausible future that you concede a governments right to investigate relative to national security, but that’s off-topic to this thread.