[krisgee]

>Perhaps the government should open companies that are meant to lose money and are tax supported (for-loss conpanies) that compete with the industry with solutions that are good for the people but bad for business?

Many government owned companies actually make a profit until private industry lobbies them into ineffectiveness. The US Post Office was profitable until a change lobbied by Fed-Ex and UPS forced them to keep 100% of their pensions available at all times.

Various crown corp electric companies were profitable in Canada and SaskTel, a crown corp telecommunications company is the last bastion of non-insane cell phone plans though I'm sure Rogers and Bell are working on it.

People just hate seeing the government make money. They see that things are good, say "hey, why should the government get this money" and then shut down the system that's working and complain when everything costs more because private industry is trying to squeeze every last cent out of them.

[Karrot_Kream]

I think this is an overly simplistic (and I've seen this argument on the internet a lot) argument. It's true that there are a lot of people, especially in Anglo countries, who oppose any policy that could allow the State to be enriched. But it's also true that there are many crappy state-owned enterprises. My family came from a developing country that used to have _most_ things run by the state, and there was widespread corruption in the government which kept service bad and prices high.

I do think it would be useful for economists to analyze the conditions under which state-run entities create good outcomes, but in the currently charged political climate, it probably won't happen.

[dundarious]

Provision of services is usually corrupt and high cost in less developed countries regardless of who’s providing it: public or private sector. That is my personal experience.

[mschuster91]

> People just hate seeing the government make money.

No, this is too generic - name the correct groups: Conservatives, neo-liberals and the rich elites hate see "the government" or government-owned/ran entities make money.

Everyone else sees that government-run services usually provide decent service at affordable prices, and that after privatization, service quality goes downhill and the cost keeps rising.

[xboxnolifes]

That's incredibly wrong. Nearly every conservative I know feels that government services should be ran like a business, as also profitable like a business (at least self-sustainable). What they disagree with is funding those services with tax money. Which obviously follows.

[mschuster91]

> What they disagree with is funding those services with tax money.

Without massive governmental subsidies, many services - especially public transport, postal service, libraries - would simply be unaffordable for wide parts of the population.