Wondering what “savage cuts” in public spending would actually mean in practice, or what would happen if the government got out of the way of providing basic services? The residents of Colorado Springs are about to find out:
“More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.” And on it goes…
So we have a report of services that are run by government monopolies, with no competition, and thus no incentive to act efficiently, costing too much and being shut down to save money. Oh no! Museums need private funding? Excuse me, but how were they funded before? Public money is merely private money, appropriated by government. Brown grass in parks (which now have to be taken care of on a voluntary basis out of goodwill and a sense of community)? Oh, the horror.That the article refers to these as “basic services” is just utterly batshit.
Ah, but what of the actually USEFUL services that are being cut, like rozzers and firefighters? Same unavoidable problems apply. Perhaps if the (in this case; the principle applies everywhere) City of Colorado Springs would allocate their spending and their resources more efficiently (oh, wait, they can’t, they’re a bureacracy), there would be no need for tax cuts in the first place, hmm?
But, to the mind of this Lib Con drone, oh, no, the fact that government services are so expensive they’re no longer affordable, and in order to save money, useful ones need to be shut down whilst pointless ones remain is a sign of how wonderful central planning is.
Why is it that everyday, Anarcho Capitalism becomes more and more appealing? *sigh*. I’m off to go read some Hoppe.
Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan made headlines over the weekend when he caught airport employees at Heathrow passing around printouts of his naked body, as revealed by full-body security scans. “I saw these girls — they had these printouts. I looked at them. I thought they were some forms you had to fill. I said ‘give them to me’ — and you could see everything inside,” he said on British television last Friday.
Is this the fastest discrediting of a “security” measure ever? I put 5/1 on a CD of the gonads of thousands being left on a plane by the end of the year.
Gordon Brown munches 9 bananas a day.
In addition to his part time job of packing fudge. Into boxes for delivery to Thorntons, obviously. (This and the above both via Old Holborn)
Or: Man indirectly responsible for the killing of countless men, women and children feels a bit sorry.
Or: Former politician attempts to kick start acting career on TV.
I’m just disappointed he recovered so quickly. Had he had a real breakdown, with some sign of remorse, he might have been able to claw back some vestige of humanity. As it is, he’s still the guy who’s willing to forge the death warrant of countless people for a few pieces of silver.
The sad thing is that it so often seems that when it comes to the State, Campbell’s utter lack of morality and disregard for human life (all whilst continuing to claim the moral high ground) seems to be the rule, not the exception. Randolph Bourne was right.
You’re a high ranking government official, maybe in the Department of Health.
Millions of your citizens, responsibility for which has been thrust into your incompetent hands for reasons you cannot possibly fathom, are in the habit of enjoying an object that whilst giving them pleasure, is generally considered addictive, cancerous, anti-social, costs the tax payer billions a year (regardless of how much said habit draws in), and is just down right gross. As an oh-so-honourably intentioned health minister, you no doubt want to wean people out of this habit, yes? Ah, but it’s a nice little earner for you and your underlings, so let’s leave it be.
But wait! Thanks to human ingenuity and entrepreneurship, there’s an alternative that, in the long run, doesn’t cost so much, is much cleaner since it emits a vapour rather than smoke, thus avoiding all that nasty second hand stuff, and, some say, is healthier for the user. On top of this, it STILL gives the user the dosage of the drug he wants so much, whilst harming no one else. It could save the country billions, not only in health care costs, but also in terms of helping to save the pubs that are dying to due the ban on the older product. It’s a win-win-win situation.
Ok. So. You’re the Health Minister. What do you do?
Isn’t it obvious?
You ban it. Through the backdoor, of course, you don’t want to scare people. Put the lobster in the pot whilst the water’s cold…
This would require all currently unlicensed NCPs on the market, such as electronic cigarettes containing nicotine and nicotine gels, to apply to the MHRA for a medicines Marketing Authorisation (MA).
Given that these Regulations do not make explicit provisions for a staged withdrawal from the market of an
unlicensed medicinal product, immediate cessation of the sale or supply is usually required
by the Agency, with written confirmation of the same within 21 days.
And so it begins, the unnecessary regulation of a perfectly good consumer good, which starts with something as simple as “Oh, we just want you to follow a few small rules… or we’ll shut you down”, and before you know it, poof- they’re all gone from the shelves.
Merely baby steps to an outright removal of these cleaner, safer, but worst of all for the Righteous*, untaxed products.
H/T Charlotte Gore. The Twatter, not the blogger, of which she is not one anymore.
On a bit of a break, so if you’re so pissed off at the state of the world that you can’t relax, try watching this and realizing just how meaningless you are.
