Religion of Peace

[everywhere116]

The basic tenet and common ground of most religions is peaceful coexistence,
but it's obvious that ignorance knows no religious boundaries.

The intelligence of the people is highly exaggerated and zealots in all cultures
seem to have little difficulty exploiting human emotions and spiritual voids.

THIS

Not this.

[everywhere116]

Please stop purposefully derailing this thread.

The thread was talking about the issue of charity for about 3/4 of a page before I got here. If that's derailed, it was derailed long before I got here. The fact that you would resort to this says to me that you don't have anything else to say.

[oVo]

Government anything is going to be more wasteful than a privately run anything,

The Iraq War alone has shown that private entities can waste government funds
as quick --if not quicker-- than the military.

pimpdave has recently been making a concerted effort on these forums
to prove he's as full of waste as anyone to ever post here.

[Maugena]

I love the sign that says, "BBC - British Blasphemic Crusaders."
Herp-a-derp.
Also: "Islam Will Dominate the World: Freedom can go to Hell." Hue. If they're so against freedom, they should shut the f*ck up because they shouldn't have freedom of speech.
I mean, really, if you don't want your freedom, I'll take it from you.

[everywhere116]

Government anything is going to be more wasteful than a privately run anything,

The Iraq War alone has shown that private entities can waste government funds
as quick --if not quicker-- than the military.

I can see that, considering that the military is one of the sectors economists agree is better in the public sector. Usually because of positive externalities of military defense, though, not because of waste. Do you have anything to support your claims that PMCs waste more money than the military?

[ViperOverLord]

That's why the USA leads the world in private donations? Way to hold on to your bigotry.

You quote the wrong graph but it is true that the USA leads the world in private donations. A reason for that might be that European countries provide more in government developmental aid paid for by taxes. Europeans feel that a large (much larger than the USA...) part of their taxes/GNI is given to foreign countries as aid so they feel they don't have to contribute that much themselves.

Despite being European, I prefer the US way of picking which charities to donate to yourself rather than have politicians decide for you who they are going to aid. I always wondered why Europe gave money to Zimbabwe to build a new airport, in doing so saving the Zimbabwean government money they could then spend on wars instead.

I could've looked for a graphic on govt/private combined but it wasn't the point I was trying to make. I agree though that private donations is easily the best way. Govt. and corporate sponsorship of charities are often a means of embezzlement.

As are private donations. Government and corporate sponsorships, however, often come with some kind of oversight. Private donations are often a great thing, but private individuals don't necessarily have the ability to know exactly where their money is going. Governments and corporations don't always either, but they are better equipped to do so, and often have structures in place to make those kind of checks.

No__ govt. officials do paid jobs that offer no incentives to perform. They do not do a better job than private orgs. The aftermath of Japan has shown that. Also__ govt. has the ability to police private embezzlement. Nobody is policing govt. embezzlement or checking efficiency. That is why govt. contractors are constantly getting triple what private contractors get for the same job. I tell you this__ but I'm sure you'll choose to stay in denial.

[Woodruff]

Government anything is going to be more wasteful than a privately run anything,

The Iraq War alone has shown that private entities can waste government funds
as quick --if not quicker-- than the military.

I can see that, considering that the military is one of the sectors economists agree is better in the public sector. Usually because of positive externalities of military defense, though, not because of waste. Do you have anything to support your claims that PMCs waste more money than the military?

I may have experienced a bit of what you guys are talking about. I joined the military as a computer programmer. At one point, the military decided they were going to get rid of all of the computer programmers because it's "not really a military job", so they decided to privatize and bring in contractors to replace all of the programmers. So I switched jobs to being a network system administrator (considered a bit more of a military job because networks are deployed all the time). Well, they discovered that was a HUGE mistake, because trying to replace a poorly-paid but highly-trained A1C (which I was at the time) with a highly-paid highly-trained contractor really wasn't worth the move. The obvious problem is the pay difference, but it can be argued that is offset by other costs not involved with the contractor...basically, the contractor gets his pay and that's it. Whereas the A1C gets the base hospital and the gym, and all of that stuff. Well, that argument would hold water if the base hospital and the gym and whatever else weren't being used ANYWAY...but basically, the difference in the usage level caused by the computer programmers didn't at all offset the costs associated with contracting out the programmers...so no joke, within six years they were bringing programmers back into the enlisted ranks. So no...privatization is not always a more efficient way of doing things.