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Comment by jld | Hacker News Reader

How are dollars I have paid to the government any more mine than dollars I have paid to a company?

The government isn't supposed to run a profit. Therefore it becomes very difficult to know which part of it is wasteful and which isn't. Companies simply fail if they don't make a profit or have an outside funding source.

Not nearly quickly enough to be a curb on wasteful behaviour at large companies, and these are the ones that affect public policy.

Much faster than waste at a government is curbed, which is essentially not until the country’s currency collapses.

a company is accountable for the dollars you pay to it, and has to provide a commensurate value, or you take your business elsewhere. dollars paid to the government keep coming in no matter how wasteful their practices

That's not how people choose which health insurance policy is offered by their employer, or which private company won the contract to deliver their electricity.

You're right, at least in the case of highly regulated markets and when the state creates artificial monopolies (e.g. electricity).

I'll correct my original comment then:

At least private companies that compete in a relatively free market are losing their own earned money when they're inefficient, not someone else's.

It’s still not right.

Private companies are losing money on behalf of their owners or shareholders.

a key difference is that the largest shareholders are proportionally affected by the waste, and have a proportionately large amount of power to do something about it.

I think most VCs would have some thoughts on the idea that a start up they just pumped millions into has lost "the start-ups money" in some stupid experiment and not theirs.

You could say that the owners/shareholders are losing it themselves, because they voluntarily invested in the company, as opposed to the state, which takes your money even if you don't want it to.

That claim assumes a free market with perfect information, which is more than even Adam Smith was willing to do.

Those are some of the most regulated industries in existence. Those companies are "private" in the sense that private individuals reap profits, but their funding is secured by proxy through force (legislation/forceful-taxation).

Move to a location with multiple electricity providers. They exist all over.

If you don’t like your employer healthcare, quit and find another or buy it on your own. There is choice there and you just don’t like it.

I think you’ve confused a discussion about how individuals make choices about their purchases for a complaint about the results of my personal choices?

government has people with guns to force its income stream. corporations do not.

Corporations lobby the government to change laws to boost their profit. Those laws are enforced by guns.

It is a myth that corporations like free markets.

Which law forces me to pay google money?

There’s laws to make you buy insurance. (Not taking a side here pro or con)

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