Tag Archives: Government waste

News

Government-run health care: Ireland cancels scheduled surgeries to cut costs

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Story from Irish Central. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via ECM)

Excerpt:

Three Irish surgeons have revealed that they are being paid a whopping $350,000 to do nothing. The three orthopedic consultants at Letterkenny General HospitalCounty Donegal have revealed that the Irish Health Service is paying them to “sit around doing nothing” while operating theaters are empty. Senior consultant and team leader, Peter O’Rourke said he is “frustrated and depressed” about the current working climate in Letterkenny General Hospital. The surgeon claims there is little or no work for his team in the busy hospital despite massive waiting lists for essential knee and hip surgeries known as elective surgeries. The health service has put such surgeries on hold until next year as the “elective” budget has overrun by $3.3 million.

It might be a good time to check out Thomas Sowell’s four-part series on the economics of health care cost-cutting in a government-run system. This story from Ireland shows how the government “cuts costs” in a government-run system. They ration health care services and products for the elderly, who have paid into the system their whole lives.

As I’ve said before, government-run health care is about equalizing life outcomes regardless of personal health and lifestyle decisions. It’s about giving some people health based on need because of their own choices, including sex changes, drug needles, in vitro fertilization, abortions, etc. And the care is paid for by people who avoided those costly behaviors, but have their incomes garnished in order to pay for the decisions of others who engage in costly behaviors.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” – Karl Marx. This is Obama’s worldview, in my opinion, and the worldview of all those who voted for him.

 

News

Government now pays the rent for 1 out of every 5 homes in Britain

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Story from the Daily Mail. (H/T Weasel Zippers via ECM)

Excerpt:

Four in ten households in some parts of the country have their rent paid for by the state, Whitehall figures revealed yesterday.

They showed, on average, one in five homes is supported by housing benefit, the taxpayer handout which covers the rent for those on low incomes.

And in London, the figures revealed nearly a quarter of households are now reliant on the benefit.

The figures, disclosed in the Department of Work and Pensions’ spending tables, also show that in the North-East, the North-West and Scotland around one in four receive the benefit.

The payout, which was first introduced in 1992 to bring clarity to state rent payments, cost £14.7billion when Labour came to power in 1997.

That figure has since risen by 18 per cent to £17.4billion and is expected to reach almost £21billion next year.

I’m currently reading Theodore Dalrymple’s “Life at the Bottom”, which describes how the UK government promotes irresponsibility and immorality among the poor. I think we really need to be careful about moving in the same direction as the British. Things don’t seem to be working out to well for them. They seem to believe in taxing people who work hard and live morally in order to reward the most irresponsible people in society.

News

MUST-READ: Mexico shuts down government-owned utility and lays off entire union

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Here’s the story from Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

The Mexican president shut down a money-losing state-owned electrical utility, taking a labor union down with it. The union is howling, but the shutdown is one of the best things to happen to Mexico.

For months, the SME union had been trying to intimidate Felipe Calderon into continuing to subsidize the Luz y Fuerza del Centro electrical distributor, even as its $16 billion in revenue didn’t come close to its $32 billion in salaries and pension costs.

And why not? The union had done the same thing to all the other reform-minded Mexican presidents and saw all of them back off.

But it didn’t have a clue about Calderon, a former energy minister who on Sept. 24 warned the union to cut costs or else. The union ignored the warning and tried to intimidate Calderon with political tactics, whipping up fear that he intended to privatize the utility. Calderon had a better idea: shut down the utility.

The stunning decision to disband the company and lay off 44,000 workers effectively ends the SME union.

Yes, he’s a conservative.

Check out the effects:

It took just hours for Mexico’s peso to rise on news that a huge financial burden had been lifted from the government. Luz y Fuerza del Centro was a money pit that cost the government $42 billion a year in subsidies. Analysts said the shutdown would save $25 billion — enough to enable the government to scrap a planned 2% tax hike.

The improved fiscal picture will keep interest rates in place and avert a ratings downgrade. All of this increases Mexican purchasing power, helps the government finance itself and releases money for lending and investment in a new economy.

Read the whole article. He sent in troops.

It’s a proud day for Mexico. Like Canada, Mexico is on the way up. But the United States is on the way down. Canada elected a conservative, and Mexico elected a conservative. Only the United States was blind and ignorant enough to elect a radical socialist.

One other thing: I was having lunch with one of my agnostic co-workers today, who was following this story. He was concerned that Mexico would start up a new company to take the place of the old, inefficient one. But that is not the case. The Mexican government has decided to liquidate the inefficient company and pass its customers to another firm.