On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 09:01:17PM +1000, Aryan Ameri wrote:
I know this was meant to disparage my comments, but you really actually hit the nail on the head. I would LOVE for some high-rise apartments to be built at the location of the Women's hospital (Children's is fine as well, but a bit further out, the Women's would be great).
somehow, that doesn't surprise me at all.
As far as I'm concerned, the government has no business building and operating anything that a private business could profitably do,
i've heard this said so many times as if it's an indisputable fact, but it's not - it's just anarcho-capitalist theology. provide evidence and reasoned argument to back up your dogma. a saner alternative view is that if private business can not compete against socialised or non-profit services then they should find something more profitable to do. profit is an inherent inefficiency, one that is acceptable for many things (especially where there is significant *real* competition to offset that ineffeciency or for luxuries and frivolous things), but is completely unacceptable for either natural monopolies (like water, gas, electricity, and wired telecommmunications supply) or essential services like public transport (also a natural monopoly) and hospitals. and, as for building such things - that's always going to be a function of government because business never plans 10 or 20 or 50 years into the future. it wasn't the private sector that built the utility services or the public transport network, or the phone network. that was *all* publicly built. privatisation of these services in the 80s and 90s was theft. craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au> BOFH excuse #78: Yes, yes, its called a design limitation