Ron Paul and Privatization?

[NewUser]

Hey guys, I'm really interested on how Ron Paul looks at privatization of government services like the roads and the garbage collectors.

I'm particularly curious on how Ron Paul looks at these foreign private companies who are buying up services in the USA. I want to know how it's a good thing that foreign investors from Europe and China are buying up land and government services. Don't we want most of the land to be owned by Americans?

This video has Dennis Kucinich at 9:15: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usgct-ilC7I

Thanks for any help!

[bolil]

Hey guys, I'm really interested on how Ron Paul looks at privatization of government services like the roads and the garbage collectors.

I'm particularly curious on how Ron Paul looks at these foreign private companies who are buying up services in the USA. I want to know how it's a good thing that foreign investors from Europe and China are buying up land and government services. Don't we want most of the land to be owned by Americans?

This video has Dennis Kucinich at 9:15: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usgct-ilC7I

Thanks for any help!

They can't buy what our government doesn't sell. The fact that most infrastructure was built at public expense and then sold by the "Government," that pretended to own it, is what you should be concerned with.

This is why Murray Rothbard talks about how difficult it would be to take over a country that didn't consolidate power into monolithic organizations. Point being, that if the markets were free to begin, then no one organization would be able to sell all the parking meters in Chicago to a Japanese company.

At this point the roads are public, they were built with everyone's money. However, the upkeep of them could be a good way to integrate them back into a free market.

Again these companies are buying these services FROM the Government, not close to a free-market transaction.

"Don't we want most of the land to be owned by Americans?"-Imperialism 101.

[acptulsa]

Stop and think about how very different roads and garbage collection are. Privatizing existing roads is much like the privatization of prisons that we see going on all around you. It turns a government monopoly into a private monopoly. To many of us, this does not fix the basic problem, which is the monopoly. Garbage collection is a different matter. The monopoly can be eliminated in that case; the only real problem with that would be having three loud trucks waking you up on trash day instead of only one.

I cannot speak for Ron Paul, but I often pay attention when he speaks. And while the corruption of government is an obvious problem, that corruption can only exist where the market is forcibly or by real necessity removed. I think he would tell you that most government evil, at least where services like these are concerned, comes from monopolization.

Back in the 1970's, when the Bell System had a telephone monopoly, we had a saying: 'We're The Phone Company. We don't care. We don't have to.' The government tried to end that monopoly, but failed. It was cellular radio phone technology which, thank God, ended it. And now we pay less for a pocket, go-anywhere phone than we paid for our landlines back then. And that's a straight-across comparison; adjust for inflation (the devaluation of the dollar) and you'll see we pay much less for a superior service now. And all because letting multiple companies all stretch their own wires all over the landscape would have been a serious inconvenience, but now phones don't need wires.

Whether those services, like water or gas service, that cannot readily be de-monopolized should be farmed out to foreigners is not something that should be decided at the federal level. Communities can make their own decisions about things like that. On this specific point, I know deep in my heart that Ron Paul would tell you no differently.