[onlyrealcuzzo]

At least for public companies, accounting is FAR from the end all be all.

Most of the time, company valuations are completely divorced from valuations. And much of what public companies do these days is try to game their stock price.

Government employment is 95% the time completely divorced from reality.

That being said, private companies employee a lot of people and this is very relevant.

[no_wizard]

> Government employment is 95% the time completely divorced from reality

This is a pretty big claim to make without any evidence to support it.

The government, whether it be state, local, county federal etc. does in have a different pace and certainly like with any big organizations can have issues such as waste, but to say it’s completely divorced from reality, especially in context of somehow private (as in not government or NGO) companies don’t also act completely divorced from reality is a really big claim

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Private companies generally need to be efficient and make money or go out of business.

VC funded startups are a VERY small percentage of jobs compared to ALL private company employees. But, sure, there is much shenanigans there.

Public companies can play tons of games as well - but the vast majority of people employed at public companies are at relatively efficient and profitable companies.

Government services are under no obligation to be efficient.

Often people vote for them to be LESS efficient, hoping that they'll get similar benefits from their private employers.

Though, hope is a bad strategy, and it rarely works for non-government employees.

But there's enough state employees that you don't have to win over that many private employees to win votes for things that make the services less efficient (like ever juicier retirement benefits).

[moregrist]

> Private companies generally need to be efficient and make money or go out of business.

Half of this statement is true. A private company definitely can’t run at a loss forever. Although in the era of ZIRP a few definitely made a solid go of it.

However nothing requires an any company, and especially a private one, to be efficient. If an otherwise profitable and privately-held company wants to swell its middle management ranks or spend lots of cash employing the owners’ dubiously capable relatives, there’s nothing to stop it.

Incidentally that’s mostly true of public companies with diverse shareholders, too.

The idea that private enterprise is always efficient is a myth, as is evident to anyone who’s worked for a large enough corporation, or even a small one where management weirdly shields some obviously incompetent people for internal political reasons.

The only correcting factor is that companies can fail, and smaller competitors can sometimes find ways to undercut large, inefficient firms. But often the small company gets acquired or out-marketed. So there’s nothing inevitable about any of this.

[no_wizard]

> Private companies generally need to be efficient and make money or go out of business

They sure need to make money or they’ll go out of business, but efficient is not required. I think nearly anyone who reads HN regularly could tell you multiple stories through their own careers about waste in the private sector, bizarre politically motivated decisions etc. and that’s just this community as a sample size. I’m certain this holds if you cast a wide net

The fact is most businesses are not the paragons of efficiency that is being postulated.

[guappa]

> Private companies generally need to be efficient and make money or go out of business.

It seems you've never worked at a private company and just believe the invisible hand fairy tale?