Monmouth County New Jersey Looks To Privatize Prison System Over “Unsustainable Union Salaries”
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/02/monmouth-county-new-jersey-looks-to.html
Monmouth County Freeholder John D’Amico last week proposed turning the county jail over to a private operator, saying the union salaries paid to the 300 correction officers who work there are “unsustainable.”
That’s putting it mildly. And with a projected annual savings of between $4.7 million and $9.4 million, the freeholders need to look carefully at the privatization option. It may well be that corrections officers have finally priced themselves out of a job.
The two highest-paid workers in the county last year were corrections officers, who more than doubled their base pay with overtime. Dana J. Townsend and Robert B. Kornett were the beneficiaries of an out-of-control system. In 2009, both of them raked in $186,000 each — $11,000 more than Gov. Chris Christie. And each received more than $98,000 in overtime alone.
If nothing is done, the financial squeeze promises to get worse. More than 200 guards are due to receive the top-step base salaries of $89,000 or $90,500 if the union’s proposals are adopted in pending interest arbitration. Last year, 36 corrections officers made more than $130,000 in base pay and overtime, and 150 made more than $100,000.
Twenty-five jail guards made more than $40,000 in overtime alone last year, and 50 made more than $25,000 in overtime. The current union contract ensures that most of the overtime goes to senior officers, not those officers who make less and therefore would not cost the taxpayers as much.
Could the union head off privatization by negotiating salary and benefits reductions and changing the ground rules for meting out overtime? Possibly. But even that might not produce sufficient savings. The freeholders need to study the options carefully between now and the March 11 final vote and public hearing on the budget.
Union members often like to trot out the old canard that the jail pays for itself by taking in state prisoners, among others. It’s not even close. In 2009, the jail did generate some revenue, primarily from payments for housing state prison inmates and federal detainees.
However, the total jail payroll requested for this year is $31 million for salaries, $5 million for overtime and a total $47.6 million for operations. Those figures dwarf the income brought in by housing state and federal inmates, making the jail far from self-sustaining.
I’m entirely for marketizing the prison system. Just about anything that would help slow or stop the prison industrial complex… however in cases like this what’s really going to happen is that some company who has ties with government will get a deal to take over the prison. It’s not even close to a free market in arbitrartion and restitution / punishment and such corporatist systems can very easily lead to results worse than a straight government controlled setup as the incentives are in some cases even more perverse.
In times like this however there is simply no getting around these possible problems. You can only fight economic reality so long. In the end it wins. Taxpayers will have to shake off as many leeches as quickly as possible.
Related posts:
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- Dave Ridley to turn himself in to the Cheshire County Jail today at 5pm
- North Jersey towns consider carrying tasers
- James Andrew Carroll now imprisoned at Cheshire County Jail
April 8th, 2010 at 9:14 am
The county Jails do not close. therefore they must be staffed 24 hrs a day rain or shine including holidays. Its the only buisness in this down times that is booming sir. So when you lay off 35 officers like Monmouth County did last year that does create Overtime. You have to Factor in Officers using Vacations and Getting Sick witch will boost the Overtime even more. The problem is people like yourselves have no clue what goes beyond the walls, and most of you don’t want to know. The people working their are Proffesionals and deserve better than this half ass blog statement by you!
April 8th, 2010 at 9:55 am
I’m not sure I understand your point. What does it needing to be staffed 24/7 have to do with the cost to run the jail? The point of the criticizism isn’t the overtime but the overtime pay. Firing unionized workers and bringing in non-union would resolve that by enabling overtime pay to be renegotiated or for them to hire more, lower cost workers.
And if you had actually read my comment to the story you would realize that I am skeptical of the so called privitization due to it still being a monopoly and that such a system can lead to worse results and corruption.
Perhaps rather than ranting about me and this post you could have offered some actual solutions.
April 8th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
I doubt we will here from U_DONT_HAV_A_CLUE again, but I sure hope we do. Prison guard is one of the toughest jobs in the world. Prison reform needs to occur and prison guards need to make the full, undistorted market value for their work.
April 8th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
robots..
April 9th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
I would first like to address Bosco. The title or term is “Corrections Officer” That is the Proffesion of many brave Men and Women who work behind the walls. You hear “Prison Guard” in the Movies like Shawshank or Oz. Yes there needs to be reform but has to start at the top with high paying useless administration jobs,and address understaffing. Most Depts would rather pay the overtime than take the time to hire and train new staff, because it’s cheaper to pay the overtime.
Now Bile your stating we should get rid of the unions and hire non union staffing at a lower pay scale. Why don’t we fire all the Corrections Officers in the US and ship all our Inmates to Mexico, China, or India? Would you be satisfied? Let me tell you something Bile, a large percentage of the Prison Population have some sort of Mental illness. In the County Facilities alone there are inmates who have been incarcerated for minor crimes, but due to the mental illness have committed various violent assaults on staff members. They have become to violent for out patient care, and most family members will not take them into there homes, but rather keep them locked up in jail. So your going to ask a person to take a lower salary with now union backing to become a puching bag. Good luck
April 9th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
you fools crack me up.. so what this guy or that guy doubled his salary …. that same person is spending everyday 16 hours in jail while ur out doing whatever u want goin to picnics with ur family while these OFFICERS are risking their lives in jail …YOU COULDNT WALK A DAY IN THEIR SHOES…privatize and the people u bring in wont give a damn about bringing in contraband or other things for the inmates cuz theyre gettin paid jack shit
April 9th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
The entire system is screwed. Incarceration due to victimless crimes fill the prisons and jails both over working employees and obviously costing tax payers even more than they otherwise would. I would like to see a justice system based on restitution for victims rather than crimes against the State. That way incarceration is only for those too dangerous to have free or those who are a flight risk. Those incarcerated would be expected to work to pay for their stay and to provide restitution for the victims of the crimes they committed. The “Correction Officers” in this system would be compensated appropriately as the market demanded. Unions which have unfair leverage (ie government benefits due to monopoly privileges) only do harm. That goes for the teachers unions, trash collector unions, etc. Monopolies are bad. Bad economicly and socially. There would be plenty of individuals willing to take competitive salaries to fill those positions but given the existing structure knowing what that salary is is impossible. Government monopolizes the prison/jail system either by providing it directly or by “privatizing” it and restricting entry, they monopolize the judicial system that works in conjunction with the prison system… as a result there is little incentive to provide the customers (the public at large) a good product at a good price. The laws of economics don’t change simply because it’s one particular industry.
April 9th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
OVERTIME IS AN OPTION: What does the amount of time or what someone does have to do with what they are paid? The issue is whether or not it’s a service valued at that price, if the demand meets the supply, and I think it obvious that it is not in part due to the issues I mentioned previously. I’m not understanding the logic in “YOU COULDNT WALK A DAY IN THEIR SHOES.” I’m rather safe in assuming that the random individual working in a prison or jail is unable to do what I do, or be a pilot, or a chief. That has no impact on the value of one’s labor. The customer determines what something is worth, not the laborer. Nor is it the labor performed. If, ceteris paribus, private sector jails and prisons ran their establishments differently than that is by definition what the customer wants. That want may change. It may be wrong or simply not possible. But it doesn’t change the fact that the value *is* what the customer is willing to pay for. If it’s not “giv[ing] a damn about bringing in contraband or other things for the inmates”… so be it. It is the customer, the taxpayer, to decide. Not you. You may feel they are in error and it is your right and moral obligation to inform them otherwise but ultimately it’s the customer and the entrepreneur who determine what is valued and at what price. And I trust them more in the abstract than the individuals who profit from the current monopoly system.
April 12th, 2010 at 9:47 am
Like I keep stating Bile You Do Not Have A CLUE! Civil Duty is not a commodity we can buy or sell in a store. The real worth is how safe, clean,and orderly the comunity is. Teachers teach the young, Sanitation Men/Women pick up the trash, Road Depts maintain the Roads, Parks parks, Police enforce the law and Corrections Officers over see the Jails. Now bile there are plenty more civil service jobs but who’s worth more to you?? In my opinion you can’t have a civil society without these jobs you neen theses jobs. Unions are there to protect those people in those jobs so RICH SNOBS like your self don’t piss on those people. Unions make sure the get a fair raise and benefits package so t’hey can at least live in the comunity they work so hard in.
Let me ask you this bile with all those tax paying union workers you want to fire( they surly will move out of the towns the help to serve) and replace them with no- Union lacky’s who will work for lower wages
(where are you going to find this work force? What are your hiring standards? Do you think your going to get the same quality people to apply?) where are they going to live? They can’t live in the same high tax Town you live in. Now they have to commute forcing these poorly under paid people to spend more money to get to another low paying job.
Goog job Buddy You Killed the Middleclass “taxpayer” who pays for just about everything in this country
April 12th, 2010 at 10:34 am
“In my opinion you can’t have a civil society without these jobs you neen theses jobs.”
You can’t have a civil society when you fund those jobs through extortion. By claiming that the free market can’t provide such services you are claiming that individuals don’t value them. If they don’t value them under what authority do you have to force them to do so? Somehow TVs and iPods are created in a relatively free market and are far more complex a process than dealing with prisoners and prices continue to fall. When competition came into construction during the housing boom the services provided were acceptable to customers and at a lower price. Are you going to actually attempt to explain how these jobs that had existed in the private sector far longer than the government are now suddenly impossible to be provided privately? That only government unions can provide them? That the cost in excess of the alternatives is warranted?
Teaching, trash pickup, roads, parks, defense, etc. were and in many cases still provided through private, normal market entrepreneurs. It was government which usurped those roles and unions in many cases that took them over. If you bothered to study history or economics you’d see that these services were provided and can be better provided with less cost through voluntary means. You fail to reason how it is that in some places these services you claim can only be done by government unionized employees are done voluntarily.
Unions are fine so long as they are voluntary. So long as there is freedom in the market for the employer and employee. There isn’t. I would recommend you read up on the history of unions. Charles Johnson of http://radgeek.com is one individual I’m familiar with who is quite knowledgeable on the topic.
“Union lacky’s who will work for lower wages (where are you going to find this work force? What are your hiring standards? Do you think your going to get the same quality people to apply?)”
You could make an attempt to hide your pro-union bias. Regardless, where would you find them? Is unemployment and underemployment not upwards of 20%. Are you saying that individuals are incapable of providing the service for less? Isn’t that decision up to entrepreneurs and customers? Who are you to tell the customer what they need?
“They can’t live in the same high tax Town you live in. Now they have to commute forcing these poorly under paid people to spend more money to get to another low paying job.”
If the job doesn’t pay well then they ought not take it. It is unions that push up wages beyond what they would be in a freer market and therefore push up taxes. Where do you think the money comes from? Property taxes hurt the lower income the most and it’s property taxes that fund a decent amount of local union workers. Do you not see the causation? You make a whole lot of assumptions about who I am and where I’m from. My family has two small businesses and are barely able to scrape by due to well over 50% of their property taxes… which have more than doubled in the past few years alone… is going to overpaid teachers unions and wasteful government schools. To sanitation departments forcing them to spend thousands a year in fees were none were before. Paying for trash pickup they don’t use. Perhaps you need to look into where money is going. Why it is that pension requirements and such are bankrupting cities and towns throughout this nation.
If any one group of individuals is responsible for harming the middle class it is those who utilize government to gain influence over others. Most unions and all unions of government employees fit that description.
Perhaps you could explain to me the government’s own statistics regarding private sector vs government employment: http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/ted_20091214.htm Are you really worth that? Why?
April 12th, 2010 at 11:45 am
I will never hide my Pro Union Bias because I am PRO UNION! Dam Proud of it too, and im sick and tired of you people slapping me and my proffesion in the face! You are a fool if you belive the same polititions who bankrupt this state tell you the Unions and the pension system did. When they the same polititions who at the end of there elected terms take some gov job so the can recive a pension and benifits at retirement all done without contributing themselves into the system for a full vested time! When the state of NJ fails to make its own controbution into the pension system nfor the past several but willing to fund failed projects like Xanadu in the Meadowlands. Come on Dude if you own a small buisness you should be asking where the hell is all the lottery money going? Wasn’t it supposed to pay for education? Listen no matter how many BS facts you come up, You insulted me my profession and the people I work with. I wish I knew what buisness you owned because as a consumer I would boycott it!
April 12th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
So are you admitting that you are unable to articulate an unbiased reason, logically or empirically, why government unionized employees should be paid more for a worse product? Why there shouldn’t be competition?
You are rather fond of assumptions. Who said I was blindly believing politicians? I’m more than capable of researching these things on my own and have done so. There are plenty of sources for this data. Simply open the books of any municipality and I’m sure it will become apparent. Or read the news. http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/ does a great job of pointing out the news stories.
I am just as opposed if not more so to “the same polititions (sic) who at the end of there (sic) elected terms take some gov job so the (sic) can recive (sic) a pension and benifits (sic) at retirement all done without contributing themselves into the system for a full vested time!” And I am fully against things like Xanadu. Theft is theft, corruption is corruption. I point them all out as I see them. You are welcome to follow this blog and look for inconsistencies in my stances.
Who cares about the lottery money when I know exactly where my property taxes are going? They are going to overpaid bureaucrats with far more control over my life than is legally or morally legitimate. Quit with the red-herrings.
Calling the facts I brought up “BS” doesn’t magically make them so. Under typical circumstances, in a debate, it is customary to bring up counterpoints to provide evidence for your point of view and to disprove your opponents. You appear incapable of doing so and have admitted being totally biased regardless of the facts of the matter.
It is funny that you wish to boycott my family business. Do you not see the irony? You want to practice your right to *not* do business with a business/individual which has policies or beliefs you disagree with. However, you wish to forbid me from doing the same of your profession and business.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:32 am
I work in corporate America, I have never been in a union and I sue to be pretty indifferent on either side. I will admit lately I have become bias in one thing, the people who do these job. I have friends and family members who are police officers, fireman, teachers, and correction officers. Most of these people chose a career in these “union” jobs to have a good solid middle class life and survive in this state. I dont’ think anyone is getting rich on a $100k a year salary, which most are killing themselves with by working overtime (if that is even close to the avg, I am sure an avg. teacher make much less).
Being in the business world, I guess I don’t understand how any of these jobs can go private. Any private company will run this as a business and as a business their top concern will be a profit margin which means low salaries and fewer jobs. You now lose out on quality and talent of these professinals, because who the heck is going to want to guard prisoner for $50k a year. So how will this work? The gov (still thru our tax $$) will pay ABC corp to run our schools and prisons, union free. The people who now make $50k a year, can’t possibly afford to live in NJ and if they do, they are barely getting by. My kid is now being taught by some idiot, because no one with a brain will become a teacher when there is no longer any benefit or protection.
I listen to people on the radio (101.5 specifically, ugh), bitch and complain about the “Unions”. It seems to me like petty jealousy. My college roommate worked 10x harder than I did in school, she is a NJ teacher, making half the salary I bring home. She chose that life, I wanted to make money. I use to be jealous of her summer’s off, her getting home at 4pm to be with her kids, her winter breaks etc…but now knowing she will have double the amount of kids in her classroom, her benefits cut, threats to her job security, the constant people bitching about her “good life”, I’ve never been happier not to be a teacher. If the teacher’s union hadn’t stepped in for another friend, he would have lost his job because of a viscous rumor spread by a nasty parent because her son didn’t get a starting position on the school’s baseball team.
I know my argument is based on emotion and very little facts, but as a tax paying resident of NJ, I live in fear of where this is all going. I pay taxes (and a lot) to live in a nice town, have a good school system, a secure police force, a reliable fire department, a clean street, and if it takes union jobs to make sure I get the most talented and reliable people doing these jobs so be it. I expect that. Because either way my tax $$ are going to go towards something and it sickens me to think that these civic jobs will go to some private company that will only be concerned with a bottom line.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:53 am
And do you feel you are getting the “most talented and reliable people” for your tax dollars? In the market place if you don’t feel you are getting good value for your money you go somewhere else. If you don’t like Dell you goto Apple. If you don’t like cleaning service X you go to Y. Government monopolies make that impossible. Why do people believe that a telephone monopoly is bad but teaching monopoly good? What is it that makes the economics of one different from the other? (Hint: there isn’t any) What is it about New Hampshire residents that make it such that they have private trash pickup? Are they smarter than NJ residents? They can figure out for themselves who can pick up the trash and for what price and NJ residents can’t? Do you consider *what* your high taxes go toward? Why it is so expensive to live in NJ relative to other parts of the country? Do you believe that NJ with it’s highest taxes has the best standard of living?
As for “no longer any benefit or protection” with regard to teaching. I don’t know where you get that information. I don’t believe the NJ teachers union is any weaker than it has ever been. And relative to the rest of the country it’s the top union. Some in the union itself talk about it like it’s the mob. If you are claiming the union in NJ is bad than logically given the stated facts the rest of the country must be absolutely falling apart. Do you believe that’s true?
April 13th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Additionally, I don’t know that individuals are claiming as a whole unionized government workers are getting rich. Some certainly are. All you need to do is go look at their salaries compared to averages in similar private sector fields. Their benefits and retirements are substantially higher and many work to double dip. Regardless the facts are that unionized government employees make a significantly higher wage + benefits on average than those in the private sector. Both in aggregate and in particular fields. When the economy is in the crapper due to awful central planning by the federal government, causing the private sector to readjust to changing demands… why is it acceptable that government unionized employees not have to do the same? Why should they get guaranteed increases in pay or retirement investments when the rest of us are getting pay decreases either explicit or due to inflation? The government lived beyond its means and now must live below its means to make up for it. You or I could never employ or live the way the government does and survive. In some cases it’d be simply criminal. Things must change. The laws of economics don’t bend and eventually the house of cards will fall.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
NJ Tax Payer thank you for your comments. You didnt sound emotional at all but very rational and sincere and I thank you again. I’m also very sorry to here your friend the Teacher is having such a hard time they are going thru alot right now. Alot of young teachers are going to lose there jobs over this.
As to Bile: Assclown its called a cost of living raise!!!! what don’t you understand. When the Oil company Raises prices every dam summer to squeeze us because they say they have low inventory then all of a sudden around Oct/Nov they have too much Oil you think they drop the price back down to pre summer prices No it takes 7 monthes to drop then bam! Summer is here again. So the price is never really going down its always going to increase “COST OF LIVING” 2-3% a yr on avg. you like reaserch look up contracts the past 10 yrs.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
I don’t think comparing the economics of teachers to the phone company (as their main goal is to make money) or my choice of an Apple computer vs. Dell (again they are in it for the money) are fair comparisons. Apple might be recruiting more talented people based on their compensation and benefit packages making their product far more superior. If your argument is that we will get better teachers, police officers, and fireman with a free market, then I am with you. But that also means that this free market in order to be profitable (which is all that matters if we go private), will have to drastically cut salaries (because unlike Apple there is no revenue in it for them except for my tax $$). No one is going to want to be a teacher, police officer, fireman, correction office, municipal worker, without all the “good” stuff that goes along with it. I just don’t see how this will work and not cost us something more valuable than money.
I agree with you on a few items. Cost of living in this state blows. I can go move to Southern Ohio like one of my co-workers and pay $800 a year in taxes. But then my kids won’t have anywhere to go to school, no one will take care of my roads, crime will be out of hand, have no public transportation, but hey $800 a year is a friggen deal! And I agree double dippers are the worst example of corruption, but I do believe they are the exception not the rule. I also am puzzled about the guaranteed pay increases (but not the retirement that is their rightful benefit), when my company has a salary freeze this year. But I do realize that they have to fight tooth and nail for pay raises (and its hard to give it up with fear you might never get it back), where I have the ability to get promoted or get a bonus based on my job performance.
Good for New Hampshire with their private garbage pickup. I must admit I don’t know much about this (I am pretty much a novice even on responding to blog posts). I am not sure I get it though. In my town I pay taxes and our garbage is picked up every week. The town I live in is very prideful of looking nice. My parents who also live in NJ pay for private pickup, I think they have been thru 2-3 different services, because they would never show up. Their town is much less prideful about keeping up appearances. I guess someone in NH prob. has the right not to hire any garbage company or lapse in paying their bill and might let their trash pile up on the curb. Maybe this is a bit big brother of me, but I would hate to live next door to that person, I hope there is something in place to enforce garbage pickup! But maybe not, as that might take away their freedom of being total pigs and promote Socialism :)
April 13th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
NJ tAX payer I KIND of get emotional when some idiot calls for me to be fired based on the fact i’m a member of a Union not on my job performance. I apologize to you.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
“Assclown”
Mature.
“cost of living raise!!!! what don’t you understand.”
The part about why you deserve one and the rest of us who don’t receive one because there is a depression have to pay for yours. That part.
“So the price is never really going down its always going to increase “COST OF LIVING” 2-3% a yr on avg. you like reaserch look up contracts the past 10 yrs.”
Have you ever bothered to stop for a moment and analysis *why* prices rise? I suspect not. Perhaps you should study some economics before commenting on a topic you obviously have no background in. Prices generally *fall* or a better way to put it is that the value of money rises against other goods/services in a freer market due to competition and advances in technology. It is primarily due to inflation, an increase in the money supply, that prices across the board rise. You could also call it counterfitting and only the Federal Reserve by permission of Congress is allowed to do it legally. The FED is also the primary cause of the recession and has been the primary cause for past recessions going back to the 1920s. So back to cost of living raises. The economy is currently experiencing deflation. Prices in many sectors are declining. Mostly those fields which are heavily manipulated by the government continue to rise. Therefore, as I received last year, employees should be receiving pay cuts to match. Given that in the private sector this occurs and we have less money… why should *you* who consume the wealth of others… not also take a pay cut to match? If you had any background in economic history you’d know that this is what happened during the Great Depression due to the policies of Hoover and later FDR which went a long way to prolong the recovery.
Perhaps you should spend more time looking for solutions to the causes to problems rather than attacking those who are victims of the governments intervention.
Are you planning on ever addressing the questions I’ve raise to you? Or are you going to continue with uneducated statements and ad hominem attacks?
April 13th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Again, I might not know what I am talking about, but I can’t resist replying. When the economy was good, didn’t most of these union jobs ( I am thinking specifically teachers and I might be confusing NY and NJ) not get cost of living raises equal to the actual cost of living costs. Isnt’ that what the whole last contract hold up about? I believe that is what UDHAC is referring to going back 10-years in his contract. I am not saying it is catch up time for them, but I can understand their argument. I would never in a million years take a salary cut, that sets a president that would destroy my salary earning potential at my company. When these unions have to threaten strikes and fight to the death (or what is seems like) to negotiate their 3%, I can’t imagine them saying “hey you can have it back”. Can you imagine working for some place when the economy was good and your company was doing well and having fight tooth and nail a 3% raise. That would be a really crappy company to work for.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
“I can go move to Southern Ohio like one of my co-workers and pay $800 a year in taxes. But then my kids won’t have anywhere to go to school, no one will take care of my roads, crime will be out of hand, have no public transportation, but hey $800 a year is a friggen deal!”
So Southern Ohio is schooless, roadless and crime filled? Please educate yourself before making baseless claims about other parts of the country or even of NJ. Have you looked into the cost per student in NJ or across the nation over the last 30 years relative to test scores? You seem to believe that more money equals better. That’s simply not true. And the system you are defending does not allow competition… which is the very mechanism that brings down prices and provides better services.
“I don’t think comparing the economics of teachers to the phone company (as their main goal is to make money) or my choice of an Apple computer vs. Dell (again they are in it for the money) are fair comparisons. Apple might be recruiting more talented people based on their compensation and benefit packages making their product far more superior. If your argument is that we will get better teachers, police officers, and fireman with a free market, then I am with you. But that also means that this free market in order to be profitable (which is all that matters if we go private), will have to drastically cut salaries (because unlike Apple there is no revenue in it for them except for my tax $$). No one is going to want to be a teacher, police officer, fireman, correction office, municipal worker, without all the “good” stuff that goes along with it. I just don’t see how this will work and not cost us something more valuable than money.”
1. Monetary profit is a subset of psychic profit. Psychic profit is why people act. Some of the best hospitals are not for profit. My insurance company for my car and rent and banking are not for profit and they provide great service. Making money is not their main goal, it is a means to their goal of decreasing uneaseness. I.E. making their life better.
2. Teacher’s short term goal is to make money too… or they would be providing their service for less. The fundamentals of economics don’t change due to profession. Like the laws of physics… just because you wish them to be different doesn’t make it so. I’m not trying to be rude but to talk about a topic which you have no real understanding of with any sort of authority is irresponsible and unproductive.
3. Only the consumer can decide what is superior. Apple is superior to some (those who buy their products) and to others Dell is. The fact that they must *compete* for your opinion of what is better is *why* they get better. Why the prices fall. They can only charge what the consumer is willing to pay. Unions remove competition and increases prices. Even free market unions increase prices locally. But at least they aren’t near monopolies as they exist today.
4. There were teachers before teacher unions, police officers before cushy pensions, firemen before fancy new engines, etc. In fact if you look back into the history of these careers you see systematic takeover by individuals who want more power over others. Government schools were created by two groups. Calvinists who wanted to control the population to keep them from causing trouble for those predestine for Heaven and old school state socialists who wanted utopia on earth by reprogramming children to remove the biases of their parents. It was explicitly sold to the public as a way to help the poor but it has in fact harmed them in combination with other social programs that create negative incentives for them to take control of their life. Police departments have used the war on drugs to expand and expand causing the USA to be the country with the most incarcerated individuals, both by percentage of population and in absolute terms. Things are more complex than you know and I really recommend doing research into the finances of your town or the many other towns throughout the US that are on the verge of bankruptcy. This doesn’t happen overnight nor for no reason.
5. Regarding guaranteed pay increases. Many union contracts have guaranteed pay increases. Some pension programs require a minimum return. In some cases as high as 8%+. Meaning that in this bad economy even if the pension plan looses money… the tax payers have to pay the difference… while our 401Ks are in the toilet. This obviously isn’t universal but it certainly exists and is not uncommon.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
There are constantly issues with teachers unions in particular over pay, in good times and bad. They always ask for more and often get it in some form or another. If you look at benefits vs salary you see that government teachers make a decent amount more than private school teachers. Private schools also spend far less per student and often release students with abilities above government schooled kids. Diversity is often the claim for such things but that is an argument *for* increasing competition so students are all put into the same molds.
Again, look into the average cost per student for the last 30 years.
Of course people don’t want their pay cut… but if you don’t cut salary to accommodate changes in *customer* demand you will kill the business. Labor, all labor, is a commodity and will follow the rules of supply and demand and price structures. Government connected businesses prolong that issue by taking wealth from taxpayers to fund unprofitable services. Meaning there isn’t a demand at that price. Keeping prices (salaries are prices of labor) artificially high was a major component to delaying the recovery of the Great Depression. Nothing has changed.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Actually the particular town in Southern Ohio at an $800 a year tax has NO School, No Municipal Service, No Police force, Nothing! We joke about it (as she is moving out of NY to get her Masters and back home to Ohio). So yes, in that one example where I do know what I am talking about.
“1. Monetary profit is a subset of psychic profit. Psychic profit is why people act. Some of the best hospitals are not for profit. My insurance company for my car and rent and banking are not for profit and they provide great service. Making money is not their main goal, it is a means to their goal of decreasing uneaseness. I.E. making their life better.”
So are we going to have to have fundraisers to support our not for profit private schools and prisons. Because those awesome not for profit hospitals have other means of revenue like fundraising and insurance companies to keep them in business. Again the key here is revenue, your car insurance compay,your bank, all earn some sort of revenue that does not come from tax dollars (i.e you pay for insurance and bank fees). Private Prisons, where is there revenue coming from? Still from our tax dollars.
“2. Teacher’s short term goal is to make money too… or they would be providing their service for less. The fundamentals of economics don’t change due to profession. Like the laws of physics… just because you wish them to be different doesn’t make it so. I’m not trying to be rude but to talk about a topic which you have no real understanding of with any sort of authority is irresponsible and unproductive.”
Yeah your kinda rude, but hey its your blog so feel free. I didn’t realize you had to be an authority on the subject to comment, as I am not in a union or some tea bagging idiot, I guess my thoughts don’t count. Hey I am just someone who lives in the state and pays taxes, who am I to have an opinion. I do manage a p/l for a $20MM business, so I understand economics. Now I don’t mean to be “rude”, but your constant comparison of a FREE MARKET where revenue drives all the business decisions with civic jobs that do nothing to bring in any money (this will not change once it goes private where a bottom line must be met) is irresponsible and unproductive.
The 3rd highest salary in my company is paid to someone who brings in $0 in revenue. But his talent is what is necessary for us to produce our product. In the case of teachers, whose end product is my kid’s education, I am going to give them as much respect as I give our #3 guy. Free market competition can drive prices down so much that the quality of the product goes to shit (as things get cheaper and cheaper so does your margin forcing you to to cut costs and create a crappy end product). Your an economics expert, hasn’t Toyota taught us anything. At the end of the day there is a lot more at stake than numbers on a spreadsheet because you are talking about my kid’s education (and of course I believe i competition it is necessary in the market place, I just don’t agree with it in this instance)
One of my work projects is selling my product to schools. In my market research NJ is listed as #3 for some of the best public High Schools in the county (behind CT and NY, OH didn’t make the top 25 :)). I moved to my town based on the school system. As the free market goes, the most talented people are going to go and work for the highest bidder and will prob. leave NJ for greener pastures if these jobs go private. I wonder what our ranking will be after that.
I think I am done with this as you and I keep going in circles. Thank you for educating me on some new information, but your argument is not convincing.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Bile’s statement that comparable private schools spend less per pupil than public schools is false. NJ Tax Payer, you are right that bile’s manner is rude, but in his defense he is accustomed to dealing with the foulmouthed jerks that the internet breeds (NJ Tax Payer, you’re certainly not of that ilk). Please don’t drop the discussion, I was hoping to weigh in as an NJEA member when I get a moment to compose my thoughts.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Pretty easy to google:
NJ ranked #4 in HS (had it wrong) behind, CT, MA, and CA. ; OH #36, since you were so pissed about my OH bash; What’s the cost per student for CT, MA, or CA or even MT which is dead last, comparable and if so does it really matter when our HSs are ranked #4.
NJ ranked #6 is elemantary schools behind NH, MA, CT, VT, and MN. I think that is pretty damn good.
*ranking based on standard test scores
NJ is ranked #1 in HS grad rate…
I am sure you are like whatever, heard this all before, and your argument “the cost per student is still way too high” will prob be your only one. Who knows, but this governor is playing with fire. Some “street” economics to consider with your FREE Market theory… you get what you pay for. You might not care if NJ churns out a mediocre education system, but my family sure the hell does.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Even the most rural areas of the country have government schools and private schools. Where I grew up in NJ there were/are no local police, no local highschool and somehow they survive… yet have insane taxes none the less. Please pass along the town so I can investigate. $800/year for absolutely no government service is amazingly high. Either you are wrong or there is something seriously wrong with that local government.
“So are we going to have to have fundraisers to support our not for profit private schools and prisons.”
Why would you need to have fundraisers? There are lots of not for profits which perform just as any other business. As I pointed out my own bank and car insurance company is not for profit. Schools and prisons have revenue streams. How do colleges and private schools work? Have you heard of debtors prison? The prison and justice systems are not geared to actually providing restitution for individuals. I covered this lightly above in the thread. If the justice system worked to make individuals whole rather than punish victimless criminals there would be far fewer jails and more able individuals to work off their debts. Ultimately there are services in teaching and prisons. To claim that the market can’t provide the services the customer wants implies that ultimately it is not a desired service… meaning the only reason it exists is due to forcing it on the taxpayers. Even if that were true… how is it justified?
“Yeah your kinda rude, but hey its your blog so feel free.”
If we were talking about theoretical physics and I was mentioning how I *feel* about how things are or *think* should be would it not be irresponsible for me to continue the discussion when debating with someone who is learned in the topic? Isn’t it best to be educated in a topic?
“who am I to have an opinion.”
You are free to have an opinion and express it but it is still irresponsible to claim authority in a topic you are not studied in or reasoned about. I spend large amounts of my free time studying economics and politics. I have backed up every statement with cross referencable facts. You are simply wrong regarding your analysis of “civic jobs.” You are ignorant of or simply ignoring theoretical, historical and recent empirical evidence that contradicts your statements. As I said prior… all the ‘civic’ services you mention were and in many cases are still provided in the marketplace, voluntarily, and at a better price. Your inability to understand how it would work doesn’t change the fact that it can and does. You likely don’t understand how your computer is designed, manufactured and distributed… but it happens due to your demand for the product. It is the role of the entrepreneur to predict and provide what is demanded by customers. Nether of us are education or justice entrepreneurs.
“Free market competition can drive prices down so much that the quality of the product goes to shit (as things get cheaper and cheaper so does your margin forcing you to to cut costs and create a crappy end product).”
By that reasoning just about everything in existence should be awful, correct? Most of what you own comes from relatively free market competition. I’m not sure about you but most of what I own has gotten better over time. My computers are far better than they used to be, as is my car, clothing… everything. All have had extensive competition for decades. Your statement also implies a complete powerlessness by customers. Really? Do you believe that business just force people to buy crap? If that’s true why are there multiple quality levels of just about every single product or service available? So you are opposed to free market education… yet as I pointed out costs have more than doubled in real terms over the past 30 years and students have a higher illiteracy rate than Boston in the late 1700’s or even 50 years ago. That’s quality? Is holding on to this failing program so important to you that you would damn the culture and it’s children?
“leave NJ for greener pastures if these jobs go private. I wonder what our ranking will be after that.”
So you don’t believe in competition. You only want what you want, your neighbors and countrymen be damned. You will use the force of government to force your neighbors to pay more and more into an inherently corrupt and failing system so that your children will be better off (only relative to others in the US) but you really don’t want to have to pay for the quality that you get. You want to make others pay for it. Other countries spend less for more but obviously they are doing it wrong. Those struggling to pay high property taxes should be proud that their taxes are going to pay for other people’s children’s mediocre educations and the ever increasing salaries of teachers who continue to provide poor service value and have little but contempt for the taxpayers situation.
You may not be convinced… but you don’t have to be. This system will fail. The problems are inherent to the system. Failure is only a matter of when and what it will look like. Theory and history predict and explain it. Ignorance of them will not prevent it nor will it protect you.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
“I am sure you are like whatever, heard this all before, and your argument “the cost per student is still way too high” will prob be your only one. Who knows, but this governor is playing with fire. Some “street” economics to consider with your FREE Market theory… you get what you pay for. You might not care if NJ churns out a mediocre education system, but my family sure the hell does.”
I have heard it before. I’m aware of the general numbers. One of the bloggers on this site is a NJ government highschool teacher. I am a former student of the NJ government school system.
You haven’t answered my questions. Who cares if the relative quality is good. Slightly better than bad is still bad. If you pay twice what others do for the same quality of service how is that sustainable? Why is that allowed? Other countries pay less and get smarter kids. Why? Would you pay twice for your home, car, food or computer without an improvement in quality just because?
You aren’t being consistent about your criticisms. You claim to be willing to pay high taxes to get good schools but don’t want to actually pay the costs associated with good schools if it were provided voluntarily.
If you want a good school for your children, pay for it yourself. To force me against my will, who has yet to have children, to pay for your children’s education is immoral and socially destructive. And as it exists now highly corrupt and wasteful making it even worse. There were alternative systems that were better. There are alternatives now which are better. Your refusal to even acknowledge that does no one any good.
April 13th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
It has been my understanding from the research I have done that a private school, prison, police force etc.. it still subsidized by tax dollars (the government pays these private firms from tax revenue). If I never have to pay any tax to the school system fine, then I will take that money and send my kids to school where I pay a tuition. But that isn’t the case here, I will still pay taxes (maybe a few bucks less) and then have to send my kid to a private school on top of that so they can get a quality education, when before NJ was providing that for my kid. Where does the poor fit into this or do you not care about the poor? My guess is the latter. How are these kids going to pay for private schools. They don’t stand a chance. Talk about immoral. There is nothing immoral about paying your damn taxes, taking care of our future generations, taking care of our elderly or taking care of the poor. I will acknowledge an alternative system, when you give me an example. How will this benefit my kid, your future kid, the poor kids, and NOT just the rich kids.
“So you don’t believe in competition”
Yes, I believe in competition, but not in this instance. We aren’t talking about some gizmo here. Computers got cheaper because of technology that competition spurred, but it also created an industry where top talent are willing to go, because the competition is paying top $$. You are not providing me with a better product, you are cutting costs to save a few bucks. There isn’t a business that can sustain itself, when you just keep cutting costs. And no one is going to go and spend $100k on a college education to get a craptastic teaching job which pays nothing with no benefits. It ain’t gonna happen!
“You haven’t answered my questions. Who cares if the relative quality is good. Slightly better than bad is still bad. If you pay twice what others do for the same quality of service how is that sustainable? Why is that allowed?”
You have been comparing the cost of living and cost per child against other states in our country the entire time, so I provided a ranking on quality. I am probably naive, but I have a hard time believing that NJ education is only slightly better than the bottom 50% of these states. If you say so, then it must be true, but I am not buying it.
I never claimed once to be an authority on any of this, as a matter of fact if you had any sense of humor, I made fun of myself several time on being a novice on this. I thought it would be insightful for you to here an opinion on the subject from someone who has no attachment to a union, as someone who is a tax payer, owns a home, is a business woman and cares about the state, which I also grew up in, went to school in, and decided to raise my child in.
April 13th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Over half of public school teachers quit after five years. That alone should show you that there is something wrong with the system. The system as it currently stands breeds apathy in teachers and resentment in students and parents. It squanders money and is accountable to no one. The lack of accountability trickles from the government departments that administer it all the way down to the students forced into it. It affects every clerk, administrator and teacher in between.
When you work as a teacher one thing you realize is that advancement is not based on merit. One of the reasons the unions have fought so hard to prevent this is that there are very few decent ways to determine teacher merit. Most successful industries base the merit of their employees on customer satisfaction. In this case the customers don’t choose to buy our service and hence they are always bitter. If I forced you to buy a cheeseburger from me, it may be a delicious burger but you will always resent the fact that you were forced to buy it. So instead advancement is based on seniority. The longer you can put up with this insane system the more money you make. This leads to teacher apathy. Why bother to improve yourself as a teacher when the only thing that affects your salary is the time you have in? Why not just sit there and do the same thing over and over year after year? Heck, why try at all?
Another thing you realize is that no one has any idea how much they are spending to educate their child. Sure, you can analyze per-pupil spending costs (and I’m sure bile and I will have a little spat over public vs private costs given my previous comment), but that statistic glances over the individual needs of students. This one-size-fits-all mentality in schooling is terribly ironic considering the push for “differentiated instruction” coming from the state. Lets say you are a parent and you have two children, Johnny and Jane. The costs of educating those students is abstracted from you as a parent. Your tax dollars go towards paying for the school system, but you are never given a bill for the cost of educating each of your children. Johnny may be in a special internship program that helps defray the cost of his education, while Jane may be so violent she needs a 2 to 1 student teacher ratio at all times. The idea that you pay the same for both services is ludicrous.
So, where do unions fits in? The disconnect between the school system and parents lead to all kinds of craziness. For one, school districts could fire good teachers and replace them with cheaper ones because the parents had no recourse. It’s not like the parents could stop paying the school. The teachers united and formed the unions which fought for tenure. The unions were initially highly democratic and voluntary. Eventually it became imperative that teachers form large unions because there was a single, large employer of teachers, the government. As such, the unions ended up consolidating to a powerful, individual entity. At this point the union represents its own interests as well as the interests of its members.
So how do you fix it? Bust up the monopoly. Let parents keep their tax money and choose where to send their kids to school. Let schools be formed that cater to different types of students. Let teachers act as the qualified professionals they are in an open market. Good teachers will make good money, bad teachers will make bad money. Parents will learn the cost of education and be able to buy any type of education they like for their child. The union will become a professional organization that promotes good teachers instead of defending bad ones. Schools will be able to cut out the middlemen that suck up the majority of school funding money. I’d also be willing to be that the average teacher salary goes up.
The myriad of problems in schooling all stem from the institution of monopolized, compulsory education. The solution is allowing parents to take control of the education of their children and allowing teachers to sell their services like any other professional. The state isn’t needed in any of this.
Information for those who seek it:
A great blog about money in education
A documentary specifically about the NJEA
A movie about wastefulness in NY public schools (don’t know if it’s out yet)
A couple great books about public education:
A Different Kind of Teacher
A Conspiracy of Ignorance
April 13th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
NJ Tax Payer – Your humor and humility is noted and appreciated, as are your opinions. Please do not be disheartened.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
“Bile’s statement that comparable private schools spend less per pupil than public schools is false.”
So reason me this.
Attributes of comparison: education service, cost
So if direct private school cost + extra costs (taxes lost, transportation, etc) = public school costs; then private school provides a worse service?
Or
If education provided at private = education provided at public; then public costs < direct private costs + opportunity costs?
If true why would people give business to private schools? If two products are otherwise the same the only attribute left is cost. Over time private schools would go out of business due to providing an inferior service for the price. Unless you are going to argue that individuals are paying for prestige alone.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Thanks Bosco for your note. I guess my question to you is how do the poor kids pay for school? Or do they just get stuck going to the schools with the bad teachers, giving them no shot a bettering their lives. How does this system not benefit only the rich. Those rich kids can afford the best school, while my kid can only go to joe average school because I can’t afford the $50,000 a year tuition. My $7k I pay in taxes in a town rated in the top 20% of the state is a lot cheaper than the $50k or even $20k for the half way decent school.
You make excellent points and I do remember being in school with teachers who didn’t give a crap. Maybe there needs to be some sort of education czar (the devil must be talking thru me), I don’t know… there just has to be a better solution.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
“Computers got cheaper because of technology that competition spurred, but it also created an industry where top talent are willing to go, because the competition is paying top $$. You are not providing me with a better product, you are cutting costs to save a few bucks.”
Competition is paying top dollar *because* they provide a service the customer wants. They have the dollar in the first place *because* the provided a service the customer wanted. A cheaper product of the same quality *is* a better product. You paid less for the same thing. Or another way to look at it is that you got a better product for the same cost. It isn’t cost cutting. It’s products becoming less costly to manufacture due to technology and/or changes in supply and demand.
The price of something is determined by the customer. From one’s limited view it looks like the opposite. That the cost of materials determines price… but it’s not. It’s the aggregate demand for the component, combined with all other capital and natural resources’ demand. You are right that no one would spend $100k for a bad education and then get a bad job *unless* they were forced into that situation which is exactly what government monopoly control over the education system (and monetary system) does. You are mixing up what exists as a result of government intervention and that which comes about due to actual customer demand. Suppliers exist to serve the customer. I have my job because I can provide a valued service to others. There is nothing magical about it. There is a certain supply of the labor I provide and certain demand. Where those meet is my salary. If I don’t like the going price for my labor I go somewhere else. If the supply declines the price will go up and a new equilibrium will be targeted. As prices rise others will enter the field bringing prices back down. That is how prices change. Prices and the valuation of products and services change over time and you are treating them as static which is incorrect. As I’ve pointed out prior in the thread, before the introduction of monopoly control over money by governments, prices tended to *decline* over time for a product due to competition and technological advances. The same product, valued by the customer more or less the same, for less money. After Keynesianism took hold of government the belief was that inflation was good but ultimately it leads to the booms and busts we are now living through and undermines the middle class. It is a deceptive form of taxation.
While this may all seem unrelated to education, I assure you it is not. It is inflation and government manipulation of where money flows that has in part caused the increase in education costs by artificially increasing demand while legislation and union policy help keep supply down.
This is an incredibly complex issue, as with most that involve state and national government. I was truly not meaning to be rude but it is IMO not fair to either of us to discuss such a complex issue without being somewhat on the same page regarding semantics and the facts of the matter. I am fond of the quote by Murray Rothbard:
It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.
I am not claiming you had “a loud and vociferous opinion” on these topics but the other person certainly did. And agree or not, education, police, fire protection, healthcare, etc. are all economic subjects and follow the same laws as TVs, cars, coffee and bulldozers. You may not like the implications of that but you may as well be upset with the universe or God for being as it is.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5224
While not comparable to US schools directly, given the question about the poor and government vs private schools this story came to mind.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
NJ Tax Payer – I understand your concern for poor children. Part of the reason I became an educator is because I believed (and still do) that education truly enables people to change their lot in life. Teachers are motivated by many things, including but not limited to money. Even in the skewed market we currently have, there exist several institutions devoted to providing great education at free or reduced costs. I believe if we really open the education market up, many teachers would be more than willing to devote some of their time to support scholarships, or institutions that cater to the needs of the poor. Also, because money would be directly linked to students, benefactors would be more likely to donate as they could easily see the outcome of their donation. Giving tuition to 500 selected students is a much more direct method of philanthropy than giving 10 million dollars to the NJ Department of Education. Lastly, in a free education market everyone’s time and experience is valuable. Who’s to say that you as an NJ Businesswoman shouldn’t be allowed to teach an entrepreneurship class to impoverished youth? Anyone who is willing to donate their time can help, not just those who have a special piece of paper from the state of NJ.
April 13th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
bile – This person does it far better than I ever can: http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/stossel-coulson-misinformation-on-private-vs-public-school-costs/
Anecdotally I can tell you that parents are usually willing to pay significantly more for a slightly better education at a prestigious private school. Parents who can’t afford that, but still want their children to go to a private school will usually choose a Christian parochial school. Those schools tend to be heavily subsidized by church donations.
April 13th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
So then you are saying they are not providing the same services and therefore not comparible at the same price without what are inherently arbitrary readjustment for the many market distortions?
April 13th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
I might need a flow chart to fully understand that question. Yes?
April 13th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
The point is that if you are claiming they provide different services you can’t call them comparable in general. If you do want to compare them you have to break them down to some set of subservices which are held in common.
There needs to be some measuring stick and for me it’s the customer’s satisfaction and from what I can tell the customer satisfaction with government school is worse than the private schools as a whole given that over time if the benefits did not outweigh the increased costs due to forced taxation in particular private schools would have died out long ago.
Additionally, posts such as the one you provide fail to account for unseen costs. “You get what you pay for” is a rather narrow and simplistic conclusion. Does it account for the fact that government mandates (depends on state to state) what and how private schools work. That competition therefore is minimized as you pointed out above? Does it account for all the government overhead? He goes into the private school IRS records but does the survey count bureaucratic costs from local to the DoE? Sorry if I don’t trust the preprocessed numbers they give us.
Do private schools result in 20%+ of those in 8th grade without even basic math or reading skills? He mentions that Hebrew schools cost about $1k more than the average public school in NJ. Are they turning out students with such low results? Since in adjusted dollars public schools spend almost double what they did a few decades ago… how does that compare to private schools?
April 13th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Oh, and i’m interested in exactly what “student achievement, positive outcomes and personal attention from teachers” actually means quantitatively with regard to Morgan Quitno’s “Best Educated” list. For example, Michael Moore famously pointed out that the WHO rated the US something like 37 in the world for it’s healthcare. Yet if you analyse the formula you see it ignored major components to the product… such as customer satisfaction and final result and weighted heavily things which would make single payer systems look good.
I’m not saying NJ doesn’t have relatively good schools but one must be careful when using such vague statistical analysis.
April 13th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
OK BILE, BACKING UP TO COMMENTS ON CORRECTIONS OFFICERS AND THEIR SALARY, GO AHEAD AND PRIVATIZE THEM. BRING IN A PRIVATE COMPANY WITH “GUARDS”. WHEN YOU OR A FAMILY MEMBER GET LOCKED UP FOR DWI OR SOME WHITE COLLAR CRIME, YOUR GOING TO WANT THAT CORECTIONS OFFICER ASSIGNED TO YOUR TIER, BECAUSE IF YOU HAVE THE PRIVATIZED SECURITY GUARD, HE IS NOT A SWORN LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER AND IN MANY CASES WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR LETTING BUBBA TAKE YOUR BLANKET, YOUR FOOD, AND YOUR ASS, WHENEVER HE WANTS. YOU SEE BILE ,IT’S LIKE THIS, A STREET COP CAN’T WATCH YOU GET CARJACKED AND DO NOTHING. IF HE DID, HE WOULD LOSE HIS JOB. WHEN YOU OR YOUR CHILD OR FRIEND IS IN JAIL , THE CORRECTIONS OFFICERS PROTECT THEM. THEY ARE BOUND BY THE OATH THEY TAKE AND THE LAW TO ACT. IF ANYTHING, MORE CORRECTIONS OFFICERS SHOULD BE HIRED. JAILS AND PRISONS ARE OPERATING AT BARE MINIMUM STAFFING LEVELS. THIS MAKES IT A MORE DANGEROUS PLACE FOR OFFICERS AND INMATES. MANY INMATES ARE NON VIOLENT OFFENDRS OR MAY HAVE MOTOR VEHICLE CHARGES OR CHILD SUPPORT ISSUES. DO THEY DESERVE TO BE THROWN TO THE WOLVES WITHOUT PROTECTION? WHO’S GONNA WORK ON CHRISTMAS? IF I WAS A SECURITY GUARD IN ONE OF THOSE PRIVATE JAILS AND THEY TOLD ME I HAD TO WORK OVER TIME………I WOULD WALK OUT AND BUBBA MIGHT EVEN LEAVE TOO AND SHOW UP AT YOUR HOUSE FOR SOME EGGNOG.
O.K. BILE………..YOUR TURN
‘
April 14th, 2010 at 7:35 am
@LT45AUTO
There is no need to yell (use all caps).
In what way does a sworn law enforcement officer differ both legally and practically from a non-sworn correction officer? From my own experience I’ve never been bothered by private security guards but have been harrassed on many occations for perfectly legal actions by government police officers.
If they are not held liable for actions against someone then that is a problem with the justice system and enforcement of jail policy. If the public then allowed such behavior I can only surmise they condone it. Since this system forces me to pay whether I agree or not I’m not able to do much about such things *if* they occurred. And such statements are just conjecture. In a freer market my business would go elsewhere.
“A STREET COP CAN’T WATCH YOU GET CARJACKED AND DO NOTHING. IF HE DID, HE WOULD LOSE HIS JOB.”
According to several court rulings going up to the Surpreme Court, government police are under no obligation to protect people or their property. And empirically it is easy to find lots of evidence that in fact much of the time if not most of the time police officers are punished far less severe for an infraction or failure to perform their duty. I have a couple personal experiences of abuse of power or failure to obey their own regulations or the law and in all cases nothing was done to discipline those individuals as far as I know.
“THEY ARE BOUND BY THE OATH THEY TAKE AND THE LAW TO ACT.”
They may be… but if it costs too much… it costs too much. You can argue till you are blue in the face but if the taxpayers don’t wish to or can’t afford it than who are you to say otherwise. A service is worth what the customer is willing to pay. If in fact quality won’t be kept with private guards it will be the local taxpayers who will decide if its acceptible.
“JAILS AND PRISONS ARE OPERATING AT BARE MINIMUM STAFFING LEVELS.”
Assuming this is true, perhaps the problem is too many prisoners and not too few staff. The prison industrial complex is massive in the United States. In fact it is the biggest in the world. Do you really believe that all those incarcerated belong in jail?
“MANY INMATES ARE NON VIOLENT OFFENDRS OR MAY HAVE MOTOR VEHICLE CHARGES OR CHILD SUPPORT ISSUES. DO THEY DESERVE TO BE THROWN TO THE WOLVES WITHOUT PROTECTION?”
Right. My point exactly. Non-violent offenders shouldn’t be in jail and most shouldn’t have been charged with a crime in the first place. You are attacking a symptom rather than a cause. If you want to stop economic moral hazards you don’t put more regulation in place as bandaids to previous bad policy. You stop the bad original intervention. Stop the war on vice crimes. Stopping the drug war alone would be a massive improvement. Drug abuse (when it is abuse) is a medical, not legal, issue and should be treated as such.
“WHO’S GONNA WORK ON CHRISTMAS?”
Seriously? People work Christmas all the time in the private sector. I’m on call 24/7 and if its Christmas, Easter or just some random Sunday at 2AM I’m expected to be ready to deal with issues at work. That’s what I get paid for. That’s the service I provide. If you don’t want to work Christmas for some extra cash… fine. I guarentee someone else will. If it is that big of a problem than the jails could hire non-Christians to cover.
You aren’t making arguments against non-unionized guards. You are making arguments against the broken system we have. If you read my post I said I wasn’t comfortable with straight up ‘privitizing’ because ultimately its a broken system and further removing the workers from the “customers” (the taxpayers and bureaucrats) may make things worse. I want a change in the justice system that stops putting so many people in prison for non-crimes or non-violent crimes. I want a restitution based system. I want competition in that field. But ultimately there comes a time will reality will kick us all in the face and the government unions in general won’t be able get anymore of the taxpayers wealth because there isn’t anymore to get. It’s getting to that point or in some cases it is at that point. There are towns on the brink of bankruptcy and if you look at the books salaries + benefits of the union members are major liabilities. So you either take cuts in salaries / benefits or people get laid off. You take cuts or you make the taxpayers and those that supposedly represent them take drastic measures in an attempt to keep the level of service for less. If that means looking into private firms to which they contract out to then thats what they do. You can’t get blood from a stone.
The economy is currently in turmoil due to all the bailouts and bad policy of the federal government. There is price deflation in some markets (prices in many places are falling due to customer demand, the lack of it) and there is price inflation in other fields due to continued intervention by government. Fields like education and health care. Services need to be scaled back so that we can again live within our means. Until then we need to live beneith our means to make up for the living beyond our means during the bubble. And for that you should blame the Federal Reserve and those in Congress. Take a look at Tom Woods’ book Meltdown.
April 14th, 2010 at 8:56 am
Bosco- I appreciate your thoughtful analysis. I wish there were more people in the world like you, but I am just to cynical to believe that. Our country has a history of not taking care of our poor, elderly, or disabled and as a result we might have some not so great policies in place to counter the years of not doing anything. People tend to donate to causes they care about. So while some might donate generously to education, it still might not be enough to pay for schooling for those that can’t afford it. Back in Bile’s “good old days” there were a lot of kids not going to school, school was for rich, white, males only.
Everything you are saying makes absolute sense as to why some students will get a far better education. But what I fear is that this would create a huge social gap, between the rich, middle class, poor, blacks, whites, christian, Jews, etc…NJ is a unique place to live because it is so diverse (I am sure Bile will say I don’t know what I am talking about), but as someone who has lived in other places and have relationships outside of NJ, my experience tells me this is a fair assessment. I actually pride myself for growing up in a town that was culturally and economically diverse. It made every kid in that school better. My husband went to a Parochial HS that was 90% white, 8% Hispanic, and 2% other. The first time he met a Jewish person was in college. Now that was his parents choice, they lived in a town with a far superior public school system, but they are Catholics and their decision was based purely on religious education and discipline (as they now admit might have been a mistake).
If ALLschools go private I fear we will be creating a huge cultural and economic divide in our state.
Now Bile…since you obviously think I am economically illiterate, I won’t further debate you on the subject of a free market education system. It was my mistake to begin to go down the road with you to compare education to a computer. Economic issue or not, its not the same things. I do have a question for you, do you consider Higher Education free market, I mean there is surely enough competition for a college education, yet college tuition keeps skyrocketing. Just curious on your thoughts, I am not insinuating anything.
I do feel though Bile from your comments that you just don’t want to pay any taxes for anything or are you willing to pay taxes for education if you felt it was at a fair amount? You did say it was “immoral” to expect you to pay for my child’s education, so I am getting the feeling you would refuse to pay any amount of money. What do you think is a good use for tax dollars? Unlike Bosco whose interest seem to better education, your interest seems to lie in what is best for you. As a US Citizen you have a moral obligation to take care of future generations (and if that means to you fighting against a huge budget deficit because it will bankrupt our children, than that is what you do). But don’t tell me its immoral to pay taxes into the school system. God forbid something happens to you and you can no longer make a living and at a young age (which I am assuming you to be) you have to live off the government for the rest of your life. You better hope that I dont’ turn around and say “hey I think its immoral to force me to have to pay for your health care or food or housing”. Isn’t it my responsibility as citizen to support the disabled.
And this from a bit back
“My insurance company for my car and rent and banking are not for profit”
I just have to ask and if I am getting to personal ignore me, but do you own a home or do your rent? You mention you rent is not for profit, is this where you live and if so do you live with your parents? I mean not for profit rent my brother once got that when he lived at home with mom and dad.
Now Bile this is a joke, I am teasing you, but I am curious if you own a home. If you do in a town that has high property tax and I can understand your beef better. But if you dont’ and arent’ paying property tax, how much is my kid’s education really costing you? And also out of curiosity how much does the avg. tax payer pay a year towards education. Is it $5000 is it $500, I think that might help me understand you a bit more.
April 14th, 2010 at 10:49 am
“[T]here were a lot of kids not going to school, school was for rich white males only.”
Thats not true. At least not as blanket as you make it out to be. There were cultural bigotries against native Americans, blacks, women, etc. but there were still private schools and/or teachers for them. In lily white New England sure, most of those in school were white, thats because most people were white. But that doesn’t mean that only the rich went to school. Looking at different proxy indicators and direct data from the early times before public schools in Boston 90%+ percent of the public is believed to be schooled and literate. I fail to see where government schools and truancy laws helped. As I have pointed out 20%+ of NJ students in 8th great are below basic ability in both math and reading. Meaning they are below an 8th grade reading level. How is that considered a success? What evidence do you have that privately funded schools would do worse?
There is a huge social gap now. You are continuously talking about how *government* schools are vastly different in terms of quality. Then you go on to fear private schools would be vastly different in quality. You can’t have both.
NJ is very diverse. I attended one of the top 3 or 4 most diverse colleges in the nation and my highschool was hardly lily white. I’m not arguing that diversity is socially beneficial. I don’t know why you’ve brought this up. There are many diverse schools… both private and public… and there are many non-diverse schools… private and public. It is ultimately upto the parent to choose. Government schools however don’t allow that without moving to the town you wish. Kids are mandated to attend particular schools and there are plenty of stories of individuals lying about where they live to get their loved ones into different districts. Why can’t the schools compete for the students? It works with relative success in other countries. Having bureaucrats tell you, I and every other person in this huge country how and where to educate our family members is not healthy, moral or productive.
“If ALLschools go private I fear we will be creating a huge cultural and economic divide in our state.”
I don’t believe the historical or theoretical evidence supports that prediction. Just as the fear that private health care would leave people out in the cold. There have been education charities and foundations for as long as there have been professional educators. Even though people are taxed for other peoples children to attend government school a large number of people *still* donate large sums to private scholarships. I’ve donated to a few organisations that are both focused on education and more general community level which offer scholarships.
Higher education is absolutely not, in any shape, a free market. The government heavily regulates colleges and universities and other institutions. It varies state to state but fundamentally the intervention is similar. It ultimately stifles competition thereby pushing up costs and limiting supply. The government also artificially stimulates the education market by providing grants and low interest loans incentivizing people who don’t need a higher education to purchase it thereby pushing up demand. By forcing children into primary and secondary school and subsidizing higher education they have almost completely destroyed vocational schools, guilds and apprenticeships which once were primary forms of learning a trade and as far as I could tell quite cost effective. Not everyone needs higher education. I surely didn’t. I was self taught. But the culture and government has built up this expectation on having a diploma that has become nearly a required first step just to get into the door of a business.
Step back and think about the situation we are in. Is there less work to be done than 50 years ago? Or more people relative to the work to be done? Why would prices go up faster than other things? This gets back to understanding the flow of money and how government and it’s agencies (the Federal Reserve) manipulate peoples incentives.
“I do feel though Bile from your comments that you just don’t want to pay any taxes for anything or are you willing to pay taxes for education if you felt it was at a fair amount?”
I think taxation is immoral. I think using force and coercion to get something from one person to provide for another is morally and socially destructive. I want whats best for society and in my opinion that’s not threating to steal someones child from them if you don’t send them to the educator of your choice or threating to take their home because they would like to use another garbage collector. That’s what this is about. I don’t believe means justify ends and I don’t believe that you get greater utility by using force or the threat of force to form society in the way you want. It’s whats best for me and its whats best for society as a whole.
“your interest seems to lie in what is best for you.”
But of course it does. It couldn’t be any other way. Just as your interest lies in what is best for you. You have constantly made reference to what *you* want for you and your family. What *you* think would work best for society. We disagree on the means to a better society. Whether I focus on other people or myself… it’s ultimately about me. I give to charity because it makes *me* feel good to do so. Because *I* think it will help make things better. A better standard of living for others is a better standard of living for *me*.
“As a US Citizen you have a moral obligation to take care of future generations”
I may have a moral obligation but 1) morality should not be a basis for violence which is ultimately what one advocates by saying that I must pay taxes for X or Y. If I disagree you are advocating my property, liberty and maybe life be taken from me. I don’t believe means justify ends. I don’t believe that taxation is a moral. Therefore taxation for education is immoral. I want to see people educated. I’m not willing to harm people to do it. 2) There is no Constitutional authority for the Federal Government to intervene in education. As a US citizen it is my moral obligation to make sure that the government that exists supposedly to represent me stays within the confines as written. The same can be said for the states and their constitutions which are far more varied.
“Isn’t it my responsibility as citizen to support the disabled.”
No. It is your moral responsibility as a fellow human being. And that’s what charity and voluntarism is for. But it is not an obligation. You won’t get peace through war. You won’t get prosperity through theft. Besides the moral aspects there are simply economic deficiencies in using force to fund things. The explanations could (do) fill multi thousand page books. Books that Bosco has no interest in yet I spend plenty of free time reading. As with the Rothbard quote above. I don’t expect you to know or understand those reasons but I do expect people to acknowledge economic realities. You may not understand theoretical physics but we give those who do a certain amount of respect regarding their comments on that field. I don’t see a reason why economics (in a broad sense, there are many versions) should be treated differently. One does not and should not be expected to have received some degree to be seen as knowledgeable in a topic. In my opinion even heavily theoretical economics is rather simple to understand… it’s just that most people live it… they don’t need to think about the hows or why. The deeper analysis and connecting the dots is for economic nerds such as myself. Back to my point… I have empirical, logical, historical and morals reasons for the beliefs I have. This is hardly a shallow “I want to keep my stuff cause it’s mine” argument. I feel I’ve been more than forthcoming with reasons to show otherwise.
“You mention you rent is not for profit, is this where you live and if so do you live with your parents?”
Not my rent. My renter insurance. I rent an apartment and have done so since I graduated college. I’ve paid for my own clothing, transportation, car insurance since i was a young teen. Paid my own way through college (living in the dorms) by doing well in grade/high school and earning scholarships, from the money I had saved working as a teenager and by working summers in college. For the time I briefly stayed with my parents after college while searching for a job I worked in the family store as payment for room and board. I can assure you I am quite financially independent and have been since I was young.
I don’t own a home. Unlike Bosco I was smart (lucky perhaps) not to buy during the boom :-) I have been looking for a home in New Hampshire for 2ish years but have yet to find something I like.
Your comment implies that renters don’t pay property taxes. Of course they do. Just not directly. Just as I pay for the water indirectly. Higher property taxes mean higher rent. Hell, many rent just to be able to help cover taxes and mortgages on their property. My parents own two small business and have had no children in the public school system for about a decade. Their property taxes have more than doubled and they receive no additional services. Federal income taxes and state income taxes at this point mean very little because they net so very little in part due to the recession but they are very close to closing their stores and moving to the west coast or somewhere with less property taxes because they are really starting to struggle. They certainly aren’t the only ones. Whole towns are going bankrupt due to high costs of services. Even if public schools were the best thing ever… if they can’t be afforded… they can’t be afforded.
I would have to dig a little to find out the numbers regarding education. It’s not entirely easy to track due to where the money comes from. Some of the different websites I’ve seen seem to break it up into property tax / state income and federal. Since even two schools in the same general location can have vastly differing costs it’s not easy to give one number. I do know that where my parents live the percentage of property taxes going toward the school has gone from around 25% I believe in the 80’s when they moved there to over 50%. That was a couple years ago when I was told that so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s higher given the trends. Given that both the total amount paid has risen faster than CPI and the percentage of the total taxes for schools have increase significantly… this brings me back to simply comparing public schools to themselves 30ish years ago. If you pay 7k a year now and lets say 50% goes to the schools. Add in income taxes and federal taxes that eventually make their way to the school. If the cost per pupil reasonable higher than years ago but the quality of education has been more or less static. Would you consider that an acceptable situation? There is more to this than just private vs public. If costs have risen they need to be justified and the justifications provided by those who have the most to lose should there be cuts and has a history of distorted analysis of the problem doesn’t really convince me.
Look. I would much rather be forced to pay for your child’s education than blowing up people in the middle east or providing aid to governments who explicitly oppress their people, or bailout banks, etc. I’d rather spend twice what I pay now in taxes to do that than the others. However, that doesn’t mean I like it. It doesn’t mean I think it’s morally legitimate or economically sound. It also doesn’t mean that even in its current incarnation that it couldn’t be much better structured and ran.
As I said I have several very different reasons to oppose tax funded, mandatory, government schools. This isn’t about money. Its about where the money comes from, how it’s acquired, what value is being received for it, etc. It’s not about me. Its about people like my parents. People who pay through the nose in taxes and receive nothing but contempt by bureaucrats and government employees. It’s about a system that fails for a huge number of our young people. It’s about the fact that we are in tough times economically and while the private sector correctly responds to the issue by redirecting capital, resources and labor to those things truly demanded by the customer… the government sector continues to grow. Continues to increase taxes. Continues to institute programs that are fundamentally flawed and doomed to failure or social stagnation.
I do far more than the average person with regards to looking out for my fellow man. From running websites to get information out about what’s really going on, to the charities I donate time and money to, to the online radio show I do, the lawsuit I’m involved in over the right to free speech and the press on federal property, my activity in several liberty organisations, protesting the bailouts and the Federal Reserves awful polices, the drug war, etc. I spend a huge portion of my time and money on things to help make society a more peaceful and prosperous place. As do many I associate with including Bosco. And it is rather frustrating and upsetting for individuals who are ignorant as to who I am and ultimately what I stand for to accuse me of attempting to screw over the poor, middle class, unfortunate. It is those individuals who have been harmed the most by these awful policies and who have the most to gain by stopping them.
April 14th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Speaking of NJ and the teachers unions:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/04/governor-christie-on-death-threats.html
April 14th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Bosco
As a teacher/NJEA member, what is your opinion on Christie’s proposed wage freeze?