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Blog Entry 7 of 8 WebViking's Corner

I'm a libertarian/conservative who believes the first precept of good government should be "Do no harm!" That said I recognize that, as distasteful as it is, sometimes government is necessary and can do good. I'll be talking mainly about national politics, with the occasional odd foray into local issue.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~WebViking

The world that works vs the world that fails

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Contributed by: John Newman on 6/29/2007

I was listening to Mike Rosen on KOA 850 AM this morning, one of many fine radio personalities that I am able to listen to thanks to the death of the "Fairness Doctrine" back in 1987. Sure Mike's a conservative and he's going to highlight conservative opinions, but you know that going in. If you don't want to listen to Mike Rosen, go listen to Air America on that Boulder station. You have a choice. Isn't it nice to live in a free country?

In any case, Rosen played about a three minute blurb from Newt Gingrich talking about the real world compared to the government world. And Gingrich's points are worth repeating. He gave two examples of how private enterprise works compared to how Government works, or as he described it, the world that works, and the world that fails.

In Gingrich's first example, UPS and Fedex represent the world that works. Either of these companies allow users to go online and track anyone of several million packages as they travel around the world. This is the world that works. In the world that fails, the US government can't keep track of 10 to 20 million illegal aliens in this country, they have no idea where they are or what they are doing. With the timing of Jack Benny, Gingrich suggests mailing every illegal alien in the country a package from UPS or Fedex.

In Gingrich's second example, he asks his audience, how many people have withdrawn funds from an ATM in a foreign country. In the world that works, you plug your card into an anonymous ATM machine halfway around the world, and you punch in your PIN, and in 11 seconds you get your money converted into the local currency at a better exchange rate than your hotel will give you.

In the world that doesn't work a company in California fires 11 employees for falsifying documents used to obtain their job. They are instantly sued by civil liberties groups and forced to spend money hiring lawyers to fight of these lawsuits in court. In the course of the lawsuit, it is discovered that one of the fired employees applied for the job under a social security number that had been used by 42 other people.

In the world that works, accessing your private bank account from halfway around the world to get local currency is an everyday thing.

In the world that doesn't work, a potential employer can't plug a social security number into an government application and verify it belongs to the person asking for a job.

What's the difference between the world that works and the world that doesn't? The world that works is run by private industry, where profit is the incentive. The world that doesn't is run by government where the incentive is......

What?

In private industry, the profit motive keeps everyone focused on making things work. In government, there is no profit motive, there is no incentive short of doing the minimum to keep your job.

In the world that works customers matter, because they are the ones that ultimately pay your wages.

In the world that fails, your wages are paid by a vastly powerful entity that forces everyone to pay tribute to it.

Who is the more moral person, the person that works for that evil, profit motivated private company or the person that works for the entity that forces it's subjects to pay for it's enterprises?

When you have a dispute with profit motivated company, at least you can say, "I'll never buy anything from you again, you #%$#@%#!'s." And it hurts them, it might not hurt much, but you are taking money away from their bottom line and that shakes them to the very core of their existence. You convince enough people to agree with you, and you can put them out of business.

When you have a dispute with government, how do you say "you've mistreated me, darn it, I'm going to take my business elsewhere?"

You can't

Is it really such a surprise why one world works, and the other doesn't?

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John Newman

Northglenn , CO

John Newman has posted 8 blog entries and 33 comments since joining on 9/27/2005. John Newman 's average blog rating is 3.64.

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