Let’s see, Radio Shack, for one. It’s gone now. The world passed it by after all those years. Not unusual, per the Wall Street Journal and Jeb Bush, both reminding us that 88% of the companies on the first Fortune 500 list in 1955 no longer exist or don’t qualify any longer. In the business world you adapt or die. Competition is both good and bad. It keeps the sector providing goods and services consumers want but it forces companies to face change to adapt to the market and the competition.
There are exceptions. Monopolies regulated by governments can always get support if they are poorly run. Then there are businesses run by government. The Post Office is a great example. Amtrak is another. The former doesn’t deliver by horse, but maybe it should. The latter is just a mess. Mail could be delivered far more efficiently by the private sector but that would mean big changes. Changes in the employment contract with union employees. And changes to the 50% of the public that pay no taxes but demand service levels. Amtrak might just go away if the private sector couldn’t make it work profitably. Great for the bus companies.
How about the educational system in the US? How’s that working? El-Hi scores against the competition(world) are poor and dropping. College tuition is going up and the student loan program is the next housing bubble.
See when government runs a business your tax dollars are always available to support static operation. No competition, no pressure. No accountability, no need to be profitable. If the government ran Radio Shack it would be a union operation. It would be less profitable since the shareholders, directors, and executives tried to keep it afloat as share values dropped from $76 in 1999 to pennies last week. Too late to recapture the brand and compete with the Apple Store down the block. Following Circuit City down the drain.
It cost you nothing to watch Radio Shack fold unless you held that stock since 1999. But, it does cost you to watch the government run businesses flounder. Do you care? Or, are you in that 50% who pay no taxes and want better service from those government run businesses? If so, you will never support change.
