privatized service does not have to show “profit” either, it just has to make enough money to pay salaries to employees, including the owner. That’s how small businesses work - you, as the owner, start one by investing your own savings in the hope of it being a steady job for you subsequently. Or, if your savings are not enough for the startup capital, maybe you borrow by selling municipal bonds… oops, no, more like by taking out a personal loan backed by your mortgage. Municipal bonds is what the government sells in the equivalent circumstances.
Private business also has the benefit of avoiding paying fat cat “pensions” to retirees or exorbitant medical benefits as is often the case in the public sector. Although one would hope that in poor rural areas waste and parasitism of this sort is already limited by sheer necessity even in government service.
That isn’t how capitalism works. If the business does not leave the owner with more money than she/he would have working another job, it won’t exist. Saying that a privately-run business of any stripe, including a fire department, would not need to make a profit is… well… stupid.
Could the homeowner have forced the fire department to put out the fire by simply lying to them and saying a child was unconscious somewhere inside the house? That seems like the easiest approach. Then when they save his house, he just says “Oh, my cat burning to death sounded like a small child. I thought it was the neighbor’s kid”.
I find it hard to believe the fire department didn’t just put out the fire anyway since they went through the trouble to drive out there and address the other neighbor’s burning field. They could then assess the cost of putting out the house fire after the fact and sue the homeowner for that cost, or get a lien. Either way, I still contend that was a dick move on behalf of the firemen.
While I don’t agree that a single owner of a single fire station would be better than a government-run operation (see above re: efficiencies), it’s not against capitalist thought that an owner could make as much in his own business as working a job. I think that’s the dream of a lot of salaried people. Would you prefer to work for someone else for $60,000, or work for yourself for $60,000? There’re always incentives. Your job gives you a 3% raise each year, or (on your own) you could expand and increase your net by 15% each year?
In the circumstance of fire departments, my (uneducated about fire departments) opinion is that you’d need a big company to manage multiple departments to gain the efficiencies. But in general, the human factors favor entrepreneurship over being employed (subjectively, not necessarily objectively).
Oh, I totally believe that half the people wouldn’t pay. I just don’t believe that this is a reason you can’t post-bill people for the cost of the service.
For starters, you can simply adjust the “post-pay” amount to reflect the proportion of non-payers.
For another thing, anyone rational enough to say to themselves “if I don’t pay for fire services my house might burn down - better pay my $75” is ALSO rational enough to say to themselves “if I don’t pay for fire services I might get stuck with a firefighting bill of $30,000 and have debt collectors on my backside for the rest of my life - better pay my $75”
And thirdly, in this particular case (and I would assume this would be not uncommon in a system where some were subscribers and some weren’t) the firefighters had to go out to his property anyway, to stop the fire spreading to the neighbors. How much did it cost them to do that? Significantly more than it would have to just fight the fire on his property in the first place? I see no particular evidence for that. So they spent money to fight this fire and chose to do it in such a way that they had no chance of recouping any of the costs from the Crannicks. Dumb.
Oh, also, what sort of effect does this have on the morale of the firefighters? Firemen don’t generally sign up to sit on their thumbs and watch houses burn down when they could save them. (of course it’s quite possible that Mr Crannick is enough of a dick that seeing his house burn down was a positive pleasure for the firefighters on duty. I don’t think we should encourage that though)
Did this dolt have insurance? Any insurance company would never issue a policy without proof of fire suppression services-what gives?
Why didn’t the FD put out the fire, then place a lien on the house?
This owner was a “free rider”-he figured the other taxpayers would carry him…he bet and lost-screw him.
An optional paid service is an optional paid service - it is the same thing.
If you want it, then you buy it and pay for it.
If you dont want it, and if you dont pay for it, then you dont get it. Pretty simple concept.
This guy did not pay for fire protection, so therefore he did not get it.
The service is not free, there is no reason why other people should pay his bills.
Lastly, I would hope that no fire department would ever put out a fire and then bill later…that would set a precedent that nobody would ever pay again until their house got on fire.
If, for any reason, the fire department had put out that fire, then nobody would ever again pay* before* they had a fire…why should they?
People should have the choice and should be free to not buy insurance, free to not buy fire protection, free to not buy cable tv, free to not buy a lawn fertilizing service, etc if they dont want those things.
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Then maybe they should reconsider the way fire protection is done in their community, and have it included in taxes? Yeah, the guy was probably an idiot. But standing there and letting it burn is unethical, in my view.
not reviewing articles or threads again before making this comment.
the person had a previous fire as a nonsubscriber, i don’t recall the details of his paying the costs after the fact.
maybe the fire department insurance only covers them in the taxed area, paid subscribers and first time nonsubscribers.
maybe the department regulations only allow property damage intervention in the taxed area, for paid subscribers and for first time nonsubscribers. the chief or firefighters would be risking their jobs to depart from those regulations.
the news article stated that potential subscribers were contacted by mail and phone for enrollment and renewal. i would suspect this would happen every year.
the guy has a fire years ago and forgets to enroll and keeps forgetting to enroll. if the guy was smart enough to run a business and tie his shoes then i would bet he didn’t forget to enroll.
They already were reconsidering this. See this PDF document, for instance, which is a proposal from a couple of years ago to establish a county-wide fire department. It even mentions the possibility of situations such as the current one. It also notes that a county-wide fire department might be able to apply for federal grant money.
perhaps you should read up on the meaning of the word “profit” and how it is different from the meaning of the word “salary”.
Besides, what “another job”? E.g. a farmer owns a private business, his farm. What “another job” could he get that would pay better if he is a professional farmer but an unskilled laborer fit for McDonald’s otherwise? Should he go get a job at a municipal run “at cost” government farm with a nice union-negotiated pension? Maybe so, but fortunately no such monstrosities exist in America. So far…
I think that everyone who thinks the fire should have been put out, should have driven over there and put it out themselves for free.
Seems like…lots of people want fires put out for free, but nobody personally wants to actually go there, do it, and not get paid for it.
If there are enough of you people around who personally want to put out fires for free, why dont all you guys start up a nationwide free fire department.
Oddly, the ubber-liberal New York Times sided with the fire department in an editorial. Is it fair to say most Americans here do the same while most non-USAians do not?
I might note that there’s a bidding problem and a principle-agent problem: you have to trust the government to choose the proper private firm. But that’s a side issue.
My understanding is that the privatization of prison services has resulted in all sorts of cream skimming and rather paltry cost savings. Fire fighting may be similar. But in the end, what works best really doesn’t depend upon a better or worse understanding American capitalism: rather it’s an empirical question, a matter of direct observation. If a couple of counties want to experiment with privatization in Texas, I see no problem with that. If they stumble upon a cheap way to provide fire services, rah rah. But I see no reason to automatically assume that the privately-owned provision of a public good is automatically superior. What separates the scientist from the theologian is that for one theory yields to evidence; for the other theory is evidence.
Many municipalities in fact have volunteer fire departments.
Volunteer fire department - Wikipedia : “According to the National Volunteer Fire Council, 73 percent of firefighters in the United States are members of VFDs.” Of course the equipment must be paid for, but I … wonder what the cost of putting out a fire would be, given that you’ve already gotten your manpower and equipment in place.
))People forget that putting out a fire isn’t a matter of just pointing a hose. It’s a risky operation that puts firefighters lives in danger.
I think this was a house trailer so it may have been just a matter of pointing a hose. But they didn’t even do that.
Also, a number of pets died. Did they check to see if there were any babies in the home?
))What I don’t understand is why they couldn’t put out the fire and then bill him for the full costs afterwards? I understand that his just paying the $75 wouldn’t fly but essentially hiring them on the spot to fight the fire should work out.
That is exactly how it works (almost) in some Tennessee counties. They don’t charge you “on the spot” but afterwards (which takes care of situations in which the home owner is not at home at the time of the fire).
I actually think they should improve that situation with a $x dollars prepaid (insurance) or $y dollars if the prepaid option isn’t paid.
Some points not already mentioned:
Looking up whether someone has paid or not: Very vulnerable to clerical error. For example: Is that name spelled with a “p” or an “s.” Looking up an address won’t work either. Trust me. I’m in that business. The amount that the local government should pay in insurance against these types of potential mistakes probably exceeds the cost of providing fire protection to everyone that would otherwise not be covered.
The purpose of government (among other things) is to protect individuals against themselves. If you don’t protect me from fire, then don’t protect me from recreational drugs.
-What is the role of homeowner’s insurance? My mortgage company pays my property taxes. Should my homeowner’s insurance company also check into fire protection? Will they still pay if I haven’t payed for fire protection? I don’t know.
