RE: RE: Re: Re: Stupid profit rate question
I agree from my experience. People may or may not be aware that Bush's head of OMB, Mitchell Daniels, is aggressively promoting increased levels of contracting out, including substituting contracted out professionals to replace government career individuals. -Original Message- From: Max Sawicky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 3:38 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:20611] RE: Re: Re: Stupid profit rate question Sorry if I misinterpreted. I agree that corporate influence is an eternal problem, but it is the least interesting one analytically. Even if without any such influence, there is an intrinsic problem of contracting in some areas simply because running a contract system has costs, both government and vendors are self-interested, and some public services are too complicated or too risky for contracting to be feasible. You could have the same sort of problems if a socialist Gov was dealing with an independent cooperative and nobody except the Gov owned capital. mbs Max, I never intended to implement contracting out would be easy. You gave a number of examples of government screw-ups. Won't they be almost inevitable so long as the government is permeated with corporate influence? "Max B. Sawicky" wrote: > MP suggested contracting was an easy alternative, tho > he didn't advocate it. I said it isn't easy. --- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Stupid profit rate question
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]
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]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Stupid profit rate question
- Original Message - From: "Eugene Coyle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Bill, go for the big drug take-over!!! > Years ago Wassily Leontief (Nobelist?) took up a question in the > Harvard Law Review -- whether the government ought to get the patents from > research done with public money -- and concluded that it should. "On > Assignment of Patent Rights on inventions made under government contracts", > Harvard Law Review, Vol 77, No. 3, January 1964. Reprinted in Essays in > Economics: Theories and Theorizing. Oxford Univ Press 1966. A much better > analysis than that Jackson Hole thing by Summers and DeLong that Ian put us > on to a while back. > > Gene Coyle > === Well it's one thing to assign the patent rights to the state and a *big* mess in terms of constructing contracts/incentives to insure the patents are turned into products that are capable of securing a growing stream of revenue to the public coffers. It will take a long time to undo the mischief Bayh-Dole has created. Right now, Livermore labs alone has stuff in the R&D pipeline that will be worth billions in the future yet the US has legislation on the books that will make the stuff as easy to grab as mineral rights under the 1872 mining law. I queried Brad on the philosophical justifications for the origins of property rights after looking at his paper. All he said was that he didn't like the Lockean paradigm.even though his paper reeks of it. At the same time there has been some interesting lefty stuff on property rights that has relevance to these kinds of issues. I'll just list one below folks might be interested in. "Entitlement" by Joseph William Singer In this important work of legal, political, and moral theory, Joseph William Singer offers a controversial new view of property and the entitlements and obligations of its owners. Singer argues against the conventional understanding that owners have the right to control their property as they see fit, with few limitations by government. Instead, property should be understood as a mode of organizing social relations, he says, and he explains the potent consequences of this idea. Singer focuses on the ways in which property law reflects and shapes social relationships. He contends that property is a matter not of right but of entitlement--and entitlement, in Singer's work, is a complex accommodation of mutual claims. Property requires regulation--property is a system and not just an individual entitlement, and the system must support a form of social life that spreads wealth, promotes liberty, avoids undue concentration of power, and furthers justice. The author argues that owners have not only rights but obligations as well--to other owners, to nonowners, and to the community as a whole. Those obligations ensure that property rights function to shape social relationships in ways that are both just and defensible. "The appearance of a book on property law from Singer--one of the most interesting and provocative legal theorists now writing on the subject--is an event of some importance, and this book lives up to expectations."--James Boyle, Duke Law School Joseph William Singer is professor of law at Harvard Law School.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Stupid profit rate question
Bill, go for the big drug take-over!!! Years ago Wassily Leontief (Nobelist?) took up a question in the Harvard Law Review -- whether the government ought to get the patents from research done with public money -- and concluded that it should. "On Assignment of Patent Rights on inventions made under government contracts", Harvard Law Review, Vol 77, No. 3, January 1964. Reprinted in Essays in Economics: Theories and Theorizing. Oxford Univ Press 1966. A much better analysis than that Jackson Hole thing by Summers and DeLong that Ian put us on to a while back. Gene Coyle Michael Perelman wrote: > Yes, the criterium that you suggest is appropriate, but mark-ups can be > misleading. > > "William S. Lear" wrote: > > > I guess I should say that what I'm interested in is a measure of which > > markets are good candidates for public investment. It seems that if > > you have high profit *margins*, low unit costs, and high capital > > investment costs (as with drugs), the public would win big-time --- of > > course in more ways than one --- by paying the investment costs. > > > > I'm just wondering with which markets we should start our program of > > public ownership. > > > > Bill > > -- > > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Chico, CA 95929 > 530-898-5321 > fax 530-898-5901
