My brother use to work for government lab. They developed some kind of communications technology that was then to be "commercialized" by one of the big defense companies. DOD instituted a new program allowing the research labs to bid against the defense companies to do the actualy production. My brother's unit successfully bid and got the job. This is when the problems started. The technology was a small piece of a larger unit produced by the defense company. The company began a campaign of villification against the government unit (through Congressional and Pentagon contacts) and also stone-walled on any collaboration that was crucial to make the products work together. They were also many months behind schedule in doing there part of the job while my brother's unit was on schedule and below cost.
I see similar things in my area of health research; e.g. our most efficient activities are "in-house" government production, next is contracting-out where we have direct over-sight, next is cooperative agreements where we play a partnership role with grant-funded research, last is unrestricted grant-funded research. The latter is 80% of the NIH activities because it is claimed that this is the best way to get innovative science done. -----Original Message----- From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2001 11:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:20588] Re: Re: Re: Re: Stupid profit rate question I was not advocating contracting out. I only mentioned it because Max suggested difficulties of running a production unit. On Tue, Dec 11, 2001 at 10:45:32PM -0500, Max B. Sawicky wrote: > 12/11/01 8:43:48 PM, "William S. Lear" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >On Tuesday, December 11, 2001 at 18:04:18 (- > 0500) Max Sawicky writes: > >>The Gov would have to organize a competitive > bidding system, . . . > > > >Why have bidding? Why not just set up a public > company that hires > >staff to run things. The "board" would be publicly > accountable.> > > mbs: fine but that's a different animal -- a public > enterprise, the same as nationalization. Perelman > was talking about contracting out. > > >Perhaps simply owning the intellectual property > of the company and > >having companies freely use it to produce things > (with strings, of > >course) would be the best. No need for > contracts, competitive bids. > > mbs: the intellectual prop is most appropriate for > public ownership. the commodity-type > manufacture lends itself to contracting, > though even so you need a fairly sophisticated > arrangement to get the best deal. All the fuss > about the vacinnation contracts indicates some of > the sort of problems that can come up. Gov wants > the cheapest price, but in a decreasing cost > context this favors the big boys. Little boys > complain, others point out using a sole source > has other risks, thin market means few bidders > and questions about whether the lowest costs > are attained, political interference, etc. etc. > > >play unless you pay us handsome profits"? This > is where a public > >company (really, industry) would come in handy. > > mbs: agreed. even pro-privatization types of the > more sophisticated sort say the Gov should always > reserve part of production to a public entity that > can be ramped up if the contractors screw up. > > problem here is in a perceived emergency there > isn't time to start up a new govt enterprise, > especially in an era when ideology says "if you > can find it in the Yellow Pages, you don't need > public employees and agencies." I'm not > exaggerating. This is literally a test used in > Washington to evaluate the potential for > privatization. Talk about the Stone Age. > > mbs > > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
