For my Libertarian friends

I used to know two witches and they were nice people mind.  (White ones and No I'm not being racist  or maybe they're not allowed to be called that anymore?)

I intended to run through the following example to show that competing against a public fire department was no different to competing against MegaFire Corp. Unfortunately it didn't pan out quite like that...

 

If we look at the Obion County/South Fulton case, Obion County doesn't have a fire department - its fire protection is provided on a subscription service by the neighbouring South Fulton Fire Department. The people of Obion County do not pay for any part of the South Fulton Fire Department service through local taxes, 20 years ago they voted to scrap the Obion County Fire Department to reduce their own tax bill and contracted to South Fulton on a subscription basis. (or so I have read).

 

Therefore a private Fire Department setting up in the Obion County area is not competing with a pre-existing Obion County Fire Department who are paid out of Obion County people's taxes, so the people will have one pot of cash to buy their fire protection with and a choice of two vendors, they are not double paying since their taxes do not go to a public fire department. Therefore the public has a completely free choice and competition is perfectly fair...

 

...unless the private contractor cannot match the bid of the South Fulton Fire Department because if we assume that the basic operating costs of the South Fulton Fire Department are met by taxing of the people of South Fulton then the subscriptions that South Fulton Fire Department can garner from Obion County would be just the icing on the cake - perhaps they fund a new fire engine or give the tax payers of South Fulton a small tax reduction. South Fulton Fire Department can under-cut any private enterprise and force them out of the game - an unfair advantage...

 

Or so I thought.... 

 

This is where it gets very messy - Obion County is 13,000 households in 500 sq miles while South Fulton is a city of only 1,081 households covering 78 square miles [to be honest I'm amazed it even has a fire department - that's the same size as the village I live in and we thought we were lucky to have a pub! ... we would certainly be scratching our heads wondering why the hell we had a fire station, 4 fire trucks and 19 firemen while we drank our pints of locally brewed ale]. At first I could not see how a 'city' of 1,000 households could support a Fire Department at all, even from taxes and state subsidies ... because it can't. However, this is obviously a symbiotic relationship where South Fulton Fire Department needs the $75/yr subscriptions from the 13,000 Obion County households just to exist and that is why it has 4 fire trucks and 19 firemen for a mere 1,000 households (which on paper can only support 1 fireman and a fire-bucket).

 

 

So, to all intents and purposes the South Fulton Fire Department is a private Fire Serivce since the bulk (~93%) of its operating costs are met by subscription and only ~7% from the public purse. Nothing about that is "unfair" - to compete on even ground the private company needs a minimum of 1 fire engine with a crew of 4 firemen and they need to "win" 25% of the available business - in return South Fulton Fire Department would have lost 25% of their income and will have to sell-off 1 fire engine and lay-off 4 crew (but the tax income does not change and the 1,081 householders of South Fulton see no reduction in their tax bill, but an apparent 25% reduction in their fire protection).

 

As I said, I wasn't expecting that - it has come as a bit of culture shock to me that a village of 2,000 people has a fire department at all, since South Fulton was described in the news reports as a city I was assuming it was at least 100,000 people and the city fire department was at least 25 fire trucks and 130 firemen with a multimillion dollar budget.

 

 

 

I love how simple it is in statetopia, that the state and its intellectuals can calculate everything from prices to wages to lifestyle choices. 

 

This carried on for several years - arriving home at 9pm, eating a warmed-over dinner and falling asleep in front of the TV - all the time believing the company had the upper-hand. One day the company asked us (you know, politely, like they do) to take  40% pay cut, because of some recession created by a dot.com bubble deflating or a commodity broker sneezing on wall st. wiping out several imaginary billions on some computer screen - so we did, but only in return for a 3 day week. So I ended up working 24 hour week for 24 hours pay and the quality of my life improved, but financially it was tough going and I started looking for another job. The company countered that by finding me one extra days work working for another company within the group putting me up to 30 hours for 30 hours pay - which made life easier and I was now working half the hours I used to for 80% of the pay.

 

That's when it dawned on me the company didn't have the upper-hand, I did - they didn't try and replace me because I wasn't working a 60 hour week - they actually went out of their way to keep me. Now I'm back to full pay and 35 hours a week, and if the company wants me to work extra they have to ask very nicely and allow me the time off in lieu.