Some activities are provided by government organizations to promote the common good and safety. As much as I do not tend to agree with either of these ideologues, I am with the flying girl on this one. If you have competition between private enterprises dealing with emergency response, you could have multiple companies show up to a large fire scene because each house is covered by a different company and there would be no co-ordination of activities and properties without coverage would just be allowed to burn to the ground. A total mess. It would actually be more inefficient because of the duplication of services between the various companies.
Actually over-competition is not one of the worst cases. The worst case for privatizing something is that there will be no competition at all. Like we have with the big Oil Companies/Export states. It does not even need them to be organized, just:
a) a Service you cannot live without
b) the realisation that you can charge more if you leave the others truf be and the other thinking/acting the same
The german government privatised the energy delivery. The result? 4 Big Concerns established themself, each having thier “turf”, not competing and being able to ignore/block off all the small competition. And charge more then the government does for Energy.
Well that’s something you don’t see in comics. I still wonder why people think the whole super breath to but out fires is a good idea. Even if he didn’t get the smoke I would still think it would be more like the “Big bad wolf” effect than everything trying out alright. On another note… kind of sucks to see weaker/(non Super package) kids doing better than you.
“On another note… kind of sucks to see weaker/(non Super package) kids doing better than you” Eagle has Wings, energy Blasts and training (even before PS238). Patriot has Superstrenght (recently augmented by Zodon station/son), gadgets and training.
Forak has been an engineer for his whole life until 1-2 weeks ago (or however long the hyperjump took).
Wait a second. Diaper pail? Neither of the kids are still in diapers. Why would they need a diaper pail? I guess it could have been reused for something else, like a general laundry basket, but then why the impact on our foreign engineer?
I think he meant that neither of the two kids being rescued is in diapers. So I’m drawing the conclusion that the toddler responsible for the contents of those diapers set the fire, and then escaped.
Diapers from toddlers are the most noxious of the dirty diaper varieties anyway. But what probably floored Forak here was the decomposition of urine from the wet diapers to ammonia.
…A valid concern, although to be fair Flying Girl is being a little knee-jerk and straw man there by suggesting that private companies will inevitably engage in violent criminal conspiracies to further their aims. I mean, you don’t see organic farmers’ associations sneak around to supermarkets and contaminate the produce sections with e coli in order to drum up sales.
Yeah, most private firefighters acted on an “insurance” business model, though if a house that wasn’t subscribed caught fire they did just sit there twiddling their thumbs while the neighborhood burned.
And if they acted like a lot of insurance companies today they’d probably spend as much time coming up with excuses not to act as actually fighting fires.
But you do see firefighters setting fires. Take for example this 1996 report. And that wasn’t even for financial gain. Just imagine if they had a monetary incentive to commit arson as well.
Didn’t bother to check the link – assumed it talked about firemen arson.
But it is very valid for fire fighters to set fires especially during wild fires when a fire break needs to be made quickly. Their either burning a gap against the encroaching fire or they stand around looking idle until the fire reaches a natural break where they start fighting it but while also conserving their resources. Just saw a video from cal fire that showed tonnes of fire men twiddling their thumbs until the last second then casually stopping the fire.
Actually, the link talks about an endemic problem of arsonist firefighters. Louisiana acknowledges some firefighters setting wildfires for overtime pay, but the really bizarre problem is North Carolina’s volunteer, unpaid, firefighter arsonists. True arson, not just firebreaks or training. They started looking, and found dozens of cases each year.
Click the link to discover the motive, ya lazy goofball. 😉
Jonathan Fisher
Actually, historically she’s right. NYC’s firefighting companies were notorious for it in the mid-1800s (and you see a scene of them brawling with each other in Gangs of New York, an often historically accurate film), and Chernobyl basically happened because the Sovs have out hefty bonuses for ‘containing’ dangerous reactors (One of the site directors taking a fire axe to part of the safety systems as part of a training exercise being another issue).
“Flying Girl” has a name, you know. She’s Jenny, “American Eagle” when she’s in costume, thank you very much. She’s nine years old, her wings are natural, not a part of her costume (she has to fold them into a backpack when she’s in her secret identity) and she is arguing with Dillon (aka “Patriot Act”) about the benefits and downsides of privatizing fire departments. Organic farmers don’t go around contaminating their rivals’ produce because that’s not how farmers make money. Private fire departments make money by being paid to put out fire; they lose money by putting out fires and not getting paid (by the homeowner or the insurance company). The incentive to start fires is that private fire departments don’t make money if there are no fires at all. The only way the idea could work is if the private fire companies were a division of insurance companies who would be obligated to put out fires for their policy holders; even then the insurance companies wouldn’t have an incentive to fight fires for non-policy holders; they just wouldn’t want to start fires unnecessarily.
And Jerden replied sarcastically: “Oh, let the Poor Burn and Starve in Filth and Crime! That’s what Capitalism was BUILT UPON!”
To be honest, I find it unlikely that private fire-fighters would burn down buildings. For a start, they wouldn’t get away with it for long, because of the police would probably find out and object. Unless… the privately owned police were in on it! Okay, hilarious idea for a dystopia.
Still, the company that didn’t set fire to your house would eventually get all the customers, so the capitalist emergency services aren’t completely flawed.
Sorry to disagree, but the person above who mentioned New York is CORRECT! Largely never legally proven, but cities with private fire companies tended to have SUDDEN rashes of fires if there had been none for a while; plus: competing companies DID brawl in the streets, buildings were allowed to burn to the ground as the crew of the fire company ON HAND simply protected the building they had a contract for.
These are simply the worst offenses that come to mind (its been decades since I took American History). However… as I recall, this pattern holds true just about anywhere that the Fire Fighters were private — and the tradition of using municipal fire departments isntead stretches back over 1000 years…
As a side note, cooperatives are another way for people to get utilities without publicly managing them (it’s how many rural and post-rural areas handle utilities). Plus, the “firemen starting fires” argument only works if the companies are being paid on a per-fire-extinguished basis, instead of an insurance-style payment plan, in which case they get paid the same whether or not there are fires starting.
I’m surprised that mr. motorcycle there didn’t bring up union troubles, though. Civil servants involved in collective bargaining causes many of a small-government advocate’s woes, if it weren’t for unions, the whole “efficiency” question would likely become immaterial, at least compared to other issues.
Yeah, insurance could work. Of course, would everyone bother getting fire insurance if they didn’t fear fire? I can see the economic value in making fire insurance seem much more necessary… And anyway, don’t they charge you higher premiums if what they’re insuring against is more likely?
So instead of burning down customers homes, you burn down the homes of anyone who isn’t a customer! Oh, if only I wasn’t limited by morality, the money I could make!
I can now see American Eagle’s point much more clearly, but the pyromaniac in me supports Patriot Act…
I remember at some point one or two years ago there was a scandal because a fire department let a house burn down as punishment for not paying the yearly fee.
That was in Kentucky. A city FD let a house in the county area burn because the city didn’t have the money to support fire fighting outside the city limits, unless the homeowners subscribed to the City FD, & neither the county or the state did anything to supplement the situation. I haven’t checked to see if conditions have changed dramatically since then or not.
I just know that I’m happy to have a “metro FD” just up the road, & haven’t heard anything about having to “subscribe” or enroll in anything to get either police or fire protection. And I’m also in a county area (another state).
ambulances don’t kneecap random people in the streets to have somebody to pick up….that only happens in gta when you’re trying to do all those missions
Hey we have very safe emergency workers here in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area)! Mission? Oh, you are talking about Grand Theft Auto. I seem to remember that the pedestrians get left as a decomposing smear after getting hit by an ambulance (tab for siren!).
Actually, what she said wasn’t that far from what happened before the fire departments were put under civil government.
David is mostly correct with his summary as well, except if the first responders were strictly regulated and had actual responsibility to put out the fires as opposed to just putting out those fires they deem profitable. But that wouldn’t be the point of the commercial fire departments, and looking at people who want to privatize utilities, regulations and controls are the last thing they want to stand in front of their profiteerign on their fellows.
Anyone else get the feeling that those two kids really enjoy arguing with each other? Not in a romantic or even friendly way (but you’re welcome to think that if you want to), but just that they both have someone who’ll bother to listen to their patriotic ramblings (if only to thing of a clever reply). In a weird way, as they seem to spend most of their time talking to each other, one could say they have a sort of Best Friends rivalry going on. Weird but amusing.
Also, inhaling diaper vapours… EW!
Oh, and as for the fire thing, I prefer the idea of publicly funded and organised, but I’m all British and Welfare-State, so who’s going to listen to me!?
Jenny (“American Eagle”) and Dillon (“Patriot Act”) hold diametrically opposed views about American politics and are competing to replace their world’s version of Captain America. They are incapable of compromising; Jenny sees Dillon as a quasi-fascist demogogue, while Dillon sees Jenny as a big-government hippie.
Yes, and so they’ve got someone who will never tire of talking to them!
Sure, it’s mostly insulting, but still conversation about something they both feel passionate about. I mean, arguing can be fun! (If Leor613 is gleefully thinking a clever reply right now to prove me wrong, it proves my point.)
So as I made clear, I’m not shipping them or anything, but I’m saying it looks to me like an enjoyable rivalry. After all, if they want to be political superheroes, they need to practise debating/arguing/hurling veiled insults now!
Dillon and Jenny’s competition is a “first past the post” thing; there can be only one!
More to the point, they really don’t like each other. The only time they have ever worked together (as opposed to bickering together during a rescue or the fight with the Septos) was when they teamed up to get Tyler impeached as class president.
My point was not really that they like each other, more that I get the idea that they really like having someone to not like.
But I get where your coming from, I just think they’d miss each other if they weren’t there to dislike.
I’m puzzled by the whole Tyler Impeachment. Most institutions have procedures for dispensing from the rules, and if PS 238 DIDN’T have such a procedure and hadn’t used it in Tyler’s case, wouldn’t there be some really ugly administrative problems involving truancy? The sort of thing the government tends to frown on? However powerful the Powers are, surely they can’t force the government to countenance the illegal placement of a child? It seems to me that one way or another Tyler’s enrolment in PS 238 must be legal. In which case Jenny and Dillon act is positively treasonous, isn’t it?
This is the first time the rhetoric has gotten specific enough to without a doubt identify their ideological views 100%. Extremists tend to just argue without saying much. A shame the GOP isn’t bothering to govern in their post policy era. I always thought the tug of intelligent debate and compromise kept America stronger than this taking my ball home technique.
Their ideological views have been pretty clear since issue #6 (their first appearance). Jenny’s a very liberal Democrat, Dillon’s a very conservative Republican.
I love the matter of fact way Ms. Ryley lectures Forak! While Forak isn’t as strong as Atlas (the first one) or even 84, he’s still strong enough to rip her in half, yet she gives him a patronizing (matronizing?) speech! Before you guys who never check the archives ask, we’ve seen Ms. Ryley before, we’ve seen that she has super powers (she can assume an “astral” form) and she used to be a teen hero. Its all in the archives.
Of course, the reality is modern cities often go with a combination of direct government-run fire & rescue operations AND contractors from the disaster-industrial-complex.
Some activities are provided by government organizations to promote the common good and safety. As much as I do not tend to agree with either of these ideologues, I am with the flying girl on this one. If you have competition between private enterprises dealing with emergency response, you could have multiple companies show up to a large fire scene because each house is covered by a different company and there would be no co-ordination of activities and properties without coverage would just be allowed to burn to the ground. A total mess. It would actually be more inefficient because of the duplication of services between the various companies.
That was actually done in the past, see Fire Insurance Mark
Actually over-competition is not one of the worst cases. The worst case for privatizing something is that there will be no competition at all. Like we have with the big Oil Companies/Export states. It does not even need them to be organized, just:
a) a Service you cannot live without
b) the realisation that you can charge more if you leave the others truf be and the other thinking/acting the same
The german government privatised the energy delivery. The result? 4 Big Concerns established themself, each having thier “turf”, not competing and being able to ignore/block off all the small competition. And charge more then the government does for Energy.
Well that’s something you don’t see in comics. I still wonder why people think the whole super breath to but out fires is a good idea. Even if he didn’t get the smoke I would still think it would be more like the “Big bad wolf” effect than everything trying out alright. On another note… kind of sucks to see weaker/(non Super package) kids doing better than you.
“On another note… kind of sucks to see weaker/(non Super package) kids doing better than you” Eagle has Wings, energy Blasts and training (even before PS238). Patriot has Superstrenght (recently augmented by Zodon station/son), gadgets and training.
Forak has been an engineer for his whole life until 1-2 weeks ago (or however long the hyperjump took).
Still doesn’t’ help that his planet still sees them as weak/worthless even despite the evidence. Though his opinion has changed.
Wait a second. Diaper pail? Neither of the kids are still in diapers. Why would they need a diaper pail? I guess it could have been reused for something else, like a general laundry basket, but then why the impact on our foreign engineer?
I don’t think it’s any of the Ps238 kids’ house. It’s just a random house fire somewhere.
I think he meant that neither of the two kids being rescued is in diapers. So I’m drawing the conclusion that the toddler responsible for the contents of those diapers set the fire, and then escaped.
Its an orphenage… its ALWAYS an orphenage, probably having kids of all ages 🙂
What makes you think that the diapers in the pail are from kids?
It all Depends…
The boy looks like he might be about three, around the age of toilet training, so the family could still have a daiper pail.
Diapers from toddlers are the most noxious of the dirty diaper varieties anyway. But what probably floored Forak here was the decomposition of urine from the wet diapers to ammonia.
All three kids, but especially they youngest two are still in the age range where bedwetting is still a common problem.
…A valid concern, although to be fair Flying Girl is being a little knee-jerk and straw man there by suggesting that private companies will inevitably engage in violent criminal conspiracies to further their aims. I mean, you don’t see organic farmers’ associations sneak around to supermarkets and contaminate the produce sections with e coli in order to drum up sales.
Then again, the kid’s what, ten? Twelve?
Yeah, most private firefighters acted on an “insurance” business model, though if a house that wasn’t subscribed caught fire they did just sit there twiddling their thumbs while the neighborhood burned.
And if they acted like a lot of insurance companies today they’d probably spend as much time coming up with excuses not to act as actually fighting fires.
But you do see firefighters setting fires. Take for example this 1996 report. And that wasn’t even for financial gain. Just imagine if they had a monetary incentive to commit arson as well.
Didn’t bother to check the link – assumed it talked about firemen arson.
But it is very valid for fire fighters to set fires especially during wild fires when a fire break needs to be made quickly. Their either burning a gap against the encroaching fire or they stand around looking idle until the fire reaches a natural break where they start fighting it but while also conserving their resources. Just saw a video from cal fire that showed tonnes of fire men twiddling their thumbs until the last second then casually stopping the fire.
Actually, the link talks about an endemic problem of arsonist firefighters. Louisiana acknowledges some firefighters setting wildfires for overtime pay, but the really bizarre problem is North Carolina’s volunteer, unpaid, firefighter arsonists. True arson, not just firebreaks or training. They started looking, and found dozens of cases each year.
Click the link to discover the motive, ya lazy goofball. 😉
Jonathan Fisher
Actually, historically she’s right. NYC’s firefighting companies were notorious for it in the mid-1800s (and you see a scene of them brawling with each other in Gangs of New York, an often historically accurate film), and Chernobyl basically happened because the Sovs have out hefty bonuses for ‘containing’ dangerous reactors (One of the site directors taking a fire axe to part of the safety systems as part of a training exercise being another issue).
“Flying Girl” has a name, you know. She’s Jenny, “American Eagle” when she’s in costume, thank you very much. She’s nine years old, her wings are natural, not a part of her costume (she has to fold them into a backpack when she’s in her secret identity) and she is arguing with Dillon (aka “Patriot Act”) about the benefits and downsides of privatizing fire departments. Organic farmers don’t go around contaminating their rivals’ produce because that’s not how farmers make money. Private fire departments make money by being paid to put out fire; they lose money by putting out fires and not getting paid (by the homeowner or the insurance company). The incentive to start fires is that private fire departments don’t make money if there are no fires at all. The only way the idea could work is if the private fire companies were a division of insurance companies who would be obligated to put out fires for their policy holders; even then the insurance companies wouldn’t have an incentive to fight fires for non-policy holders; they just wouldn’t want to start fires unnecessarily.
And Jerden replied sarcastically: “Oh, let the Poor Burn and Starve in Filth and Crime! That’s what Capitalism was BUILT UPON!”
To be honest, I find it unlikely that private fire-fighters would burn down buildings. For a start, they wouldn’t get away with it for long, because of the police would probably find out and object. Unless… the privately owned police were in on it! Okay, hilarious idea for a dystopia.
Still, the company that didn’t set fire to your house would eventually get all the customers, so the capitalist emergency services aren’t completely flawed.
Sorry to disagree, but the person above who mentioned New York is CORRECT! Largely never legally proven, but cities with private fire companies tended to have SUDDEN rashes of fires if there had been none for a while; plus: competing companies DID brawl in the streets, buildings were allowed to burn to the ground as the crew of the fire company ON HAND simply protected the building they had a contract for.
These are simply the worst offenses that come to mind (its been decades since I took American History). However… as I recall, this pattern holds true just about anywhere that the Fire Fighters were private — and the tradition of using municipal fire departments isntead stretches back over 1000 years…
As a side note, cooperatives are another way for people to get utilities without publicly managing them (it’s how many rural and post-rural areas handle utilities). Plus, the “firemen starting fires” argument only works if the companies are being paid on a per-fire-extinguished basis, instead of an insurance-style payment plan, in which case they get paid the same whether or not there are fires starting.
I’m surprised that mr. motorcycle there didn’t bring up union troubles, though. Civil servants involved in collective bargaining causes many of a small-government advocate’s woes, if it weren’t for unions, the whole “efficiency” question would likely become immaterial, at least compared to other issues.
Yeah, insurance could work. Of course, would everyone bother getting fire insurance if they didn’t fear fire? I can see the economic value in making fire insurance seem much more necessary… And anyway, don’t they charge you higher premiums if what they’re insuring against is more likely?
So instead of burning down customers homes, you burn down the homes of anyone who isn’t a customer! Oh, if only I wasn’t limited by morality, the money I could make!
I can now see American Eagle’s point much more clearly, but the pyromaniac in me supports Patriot Act…
So the fire folk get paid regardless of their success?… That seems likely to cause reductions in competence.
I remember at some point one or two years ago there was a scandal because a fire department let a house burn down as punishment for not paying the yearly fee.
That was in Kentucky. A city FD let a house in the county area burn because the city didn’t have the money to support fire fighting outside the city limits, unless the homeowners subscribed to the City FD, & neither the county or the state did anything to supplement the situation. I haven’t checked to see if conditions have changed dramatically since then or not.
I just know that I’m happy to have a “metro FD” just up the road, & haven’t heard anything about having to “subscribe” or enroll in anything to get either police or fire protection. And I’m also in a county area (another state).
Yes, Jenny, nine. Thank you for remembering that for me.
ambulances don’t kneecap random people in the streets to have somebody to pick up….that only happens in gta when you’re trying to do all those missions
Hey we have very safe emergency workers here in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area)! Mission? Oh, you are talking about Grand Theft Auto. I seem to remember that the pedestrians get left as a decomposing smear after getting hit by an ambulance (tab for siren!).
Ahem….. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting
Marcus Crassus. Never underestimate greed.
Actually, what she said wasn’t that far from what happened before the fire departments were put under civil government.
David is mostly correct with his summary as well, except if the first responders were strictly regulated and had actual responsibility to put out the fires as opposed to just putting out those fires they deem profitable. But that wouldn’t be the point of the commercial fire departments, and looking at people who want to privatize utilities, regulations and controls are the last thing they want to stand in front of their profiteerign on their fellows.
Anyone else get the feeling that those two kids really enjoy arguing with each other? Not in a romantic or even friendly way (but you’re welcome to think that if you want to), but just that they both have someone who’ll bother to listen to their patriotic ramblings (if only to thing of a clever reply). In a weird way, as they seem to spend most of their time talking to each other, one could say they have a sort of Best Friends rivalry going on. Weird but amusing.
Also, inhaling diaper vapours… EW!
Oh, and as for the fire thing, I prefer the idea of publicly funded and organised, but I’m all British and Welfare-State, so who’s going to listen to me!?
Jenny (“American Eagle”) and Dillon (“Patriot Act”) hold diametrically opposed views about American politics and are competing to replace their world’s version of Captain America. They are incapable of compromising; Jenny sees Dillon as a quasi-fascist demogogue, while Dillon sees Jenny as a big-government hippie.
Yes, and so they’ve got someone who will never tire of talking to them!
Sure, it’s mostly insulting, but still conversation about something they both feel passionate about. I mean, arguing can be fun! (If Leor613 is gleefully thinking a clever reply right now to prove me wrong, it proves my point.)
So as I made clear, I’m not shipping them or anything, but I’m saying it looks to me like an enjoyable rivalry. After all, if they want to be political superheroes, they need to practise debating/arguing/hurling veiled insults now!
Insert clever reply of either support or condemnation here. 😀
Dillon and Jenny’s competition is a “first past the post” thing; there can be only one!
More to the point, they really don’t like each other. The only time they have ever worked together (as opposed to bickering together during a rescue or the fight with the Septos) was when they teamed up to get Tyler impeached as class president.
My point was not really that they like each other, more that I get the idea that they really like having someone to not like.
But I get where your coming from, I just think they’d miss each other if they weren’t there to dislike.
I’m puzzled by the whole Tyler Impeachment. Most institutions have procedures for dispensing from the rules, and if PS 238 DIDN’T have such a procedure and hadn’t used it in Tyler’s case, wouldn’t there be some really ugly administrative problems involving truancy? The sort of thing the government tends to frown on? However powerful the Powers are, surely they can’t force the government to countenance the illegal placement of a child? It seems to me that one way or another Tyler’s enrolment in PS 238 must be legal. In which case Jenny and Dillon act is positively treasonous, isn’t it?
This is the first time the rhetoric has gotten specific enough to without a doubt identify their ideological views 100%. Extremists tend to just argue without saying much. A shame the GOP isn’t bothering to govern in their post policy era. I always thought the tug of intelligent debate and compromise kept America stronger than this taking my ball home technique.
Their ideological views have been pretty clear since issue #6 (their first appearance). Jenny’s a very liberal Democrat, Dillon’s a very conservative Republican.
I love the matter of fact way Ms. Ryley lectures Forak! While Forak isn’t as strong as Atlas (the first one) or even 84, he’s still strong enough to rip her in half, yet she gives him a patronizing (matronizing?) speech! Before you guys who never check the archives ask, we’ve seen Ms. Ryley before, we’ve seen that she has super powers (she can assume an “astral” form) and she used to be a teen hero. Its all in the archives.
it’s because he’s used to it
Of course, the reality is modern cities often go with a combination of direct government-run fire & rescue operations AND contractors from the disaster-industrial-complex.