But how do you provide for this public service with competition? What about the economy of scales?
Are we going to have a Mpls and St Paul bus company? How about Hennepin Cty and Ramsey Cty? Will people have to walk across the Lake St bridge to get service? How will we integrate the various companies? In terms of competition costing you less, I curious what is the cost of your water and trash bills per month. The city of Minneapolis has a monopoly in providing these services (I don't get to choose my trash collector) and I pay roughly $36 a month. Heavily regulated monopolies can work quite well. In fact when we look at the administrative cost of Medicaid, we see that government is more efficient. This from Paul Krugman (economist) regular columnist of NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/26/opinion/26KRUG.html?hp "The only thing that kept this "reform" from being a fiscal disaster was the fact that after an initial rush into the Medicare business, many H.M.O.'s pulled out again. It turns out that private plans are much less efficient than the government at providing health insurance because they have much higher overhead. Even with a heavy subsidy, they can't compete with traditional Medicare. There's a lesson in this experience. Sometimes there's no magic in the free market - in fact, it can be a hindrance. Health insurance is one place where government agencies consistently do a better job than private companies. I'll have more to say about this when I write about the general issue of health care reform (soon, I promise!)." So let us look at this with a more open mind and think critically about the Free Market mantra. Josh Kroll Mpls. > >> transit is because the union has chosen to cripple the system by > >> striking. > > > > [... anti-union rant] > I am NOT anti-union, I AM anti-monopoly. I am against monopoly power. A > union that is the only provider of a necessary service is a monopoly. > > By characterizing my reasonable statements as a "Rant", you have just left > the realm of intelligent conversation, so I won't follow you there. > > Bob Treumann, Saint Paul > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Metropolitan Issues Forum > http://www.e-democracy.org/tcmetro > Rules: Sign posts with real name. You may not post more than twice a day. _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Metropolitan Issues Forum http://www.e-democracy.org/tcmetro Rules: Sign posts with real name. You may not post more than twice a day.
