Bull Dozing Off

It's often taken for granted that government programs or enterprises are more inefficient, wasteful and error-prone than free market programs or enterprises. I'm sure there's truth to that, and in my twenty six years I myself have seen the obvious problems that arise when jobs are given out as patronage and one enterprise has a protected monopoly.

But the video below from Richard Florida (h/t Andrew Sullivan) is a good reminder that the government doesn't have a monopoly on mindless inefficiency and waste. I think one of the reasons why government gets such a bad rap is because THOSE ARE OUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS AT STAKE DAMNIT. Since government programs are the only ones that every citizen funds, they get the most bad press.

It's important to remember though that the free market completely screws up a decent amount too, and not just in the banking sector. In all of these debates about what level of society should perform certain tasks, whether certain functions should be outsourced, crowdsourced, etc., we need to keep in mind that where money and humans are involved, there are going to be some major errors along the way no matter who is doing it or what level or part of society they're part of. You can just imagine the Republican rants if the housing market inefficiency seen below were connected to the federal government.