Since I started this whole thread I would just like to observe that although
there are certainly incompetant governement employees that the vast majority
that I have had the pleasure of meeting were not only competant  but
professional. I would say the same as to the good people who work as contractors or for
contracting companies. Sure there has been abuse of contracting situations and
those have been well publicized in the press, but does that mean the one
assumes that all contractors are driven by those impulses that have lead others to
less than ethical or legal practices? I think not.

Yes, perhaps it is harder to weed out bad employees in the civil service but
the same can be said for many non-governemental institutions that have a
faulty culture that promotes incompetance or even worse unethical and illegal
practices. The last that I looked, Enron and others of its corporate ilk (who were
also held governement contracts) were not governed by the civil service. This
is perhaps a lesson that so-called "competition" isn't as pure nor as as
highly an exhaulted value that some espouse it to be.

So, instead of painting with such large brush, I would encourage my
colleagues on here to look upon this as a more complex mixture of people and
organizational cultures, in the governmental and corporate world,  that have been
recognized for both their excellence and lack thereof in many situtations over the
years.

Privitization, just like tax cuts, have been prosletyzed as universal
paneaceas for our troubles for years now - sort of the political snake-oil of our
time.

I, for one, don't buy into any "universal" solution and feel that with these
issues come both effects that are good and bad. All such ideas remain to be
seen as to how effective they might be in the light of history.

Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Artifacts
2930 South Birch Street
Denver, CO  80222
303-300-5257
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