Schools. Parks. Libraries. Roads. Mail delivery...

These are provided by our government. They're paid for by the public and are available to everyone.

What happens to these public goods when you try to "run the government like a business"? Privatization. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqn1uD_B70U

June 20, 2025 - 22:31 UTC

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Try a co-op model. Every farmer in America is a member of a co-op. How about a credit union?
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Privatisation is followed by corner cutting, by staff 'rationalisation', by regular price hikes & whatever else it takes to produce an ever increasing profit -- all at the expense of decent service to consumers.
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a.k.a "enshitification"
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The direct road to Fascism.
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Oligarchs get richer and all those services becydiminished!
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Become diminished.
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So why pay taxes then?
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www.yahoo.com/news/army-bringing-tech-executives-lieutenant-163357183.html
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Sounds ominous.
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Many in England say this hasn’t worked out for them. Maybe we should study the Brits.
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Maybe if the US were to be run the way Warren Buffett or a SUCCESSFUL businessman ran his corporation it would be okay, but most assuredly NOT the way DJT ran his businesses - into the ground and skirting the edge of illegality if not sailing right over the precipice!
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🤬🤬🤬🤬
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It’s ridiculous to try to run the government like a business. Their goals aren’t the same at all.
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It’s even more dangerous, that there is a felon thief, business flop who thinks it’s a good idea. His magats probably do too.
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Fox Denver
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The 1939 movie Stagecoach has a scene where one of the passengers insists that we need a businessman for president. When I heard that line while watching it, I thought "Has any quote ever aged more poorly?"
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The only people who think the government should be run like a corporation are people who have never worked for a government.

Spend any time as a government employee and you will very quickly realize that there is no way. The public sector is completely different.
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It’s fine using business processes and in fact a good idea to borrow from the private sector, what needs to be different is the measures of success. Rather than return on investment at risk they should reflect human outcomes.
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Given that Trump is using ICE to terrorize particular communities, has slashed or shut down agencies that protect citizens and people around the world, deployed armed forces in Los Angeles without legitimacy, etc., etc., I am wondering how much money he's spent in the first 5 months of his term.
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Thank you Robert Reich! Your videos are helpful, clear and informative. And often entertaining too! Easy to understand, but NOT dumbed down by any means, and without doublespeak or technical lingo.
Please keep posting these. You are a true American in the BEST sense of the word. I appreciate you❣
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Another Reagan trope that won’t die.
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My favorite example is GPS.

All those valuable signals given away for free as a public good.

Imagine if it were a for-profit business, charging big $ for the service.

And think of the incredible innovation in so many aspects of life that GPS has enabled.

BECAUSE it is freely available to all.
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Actually, add the military, fire department, police departments, road repair crews -- none of the government services make a profit. We pay our taxes to have them so we and our neighbors can live in a civilized society.
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All of those services- and my favorite example, the GPS system- are public goods that enable private businesses to innovate and make profits.

Business needs good government. Most of what made my own electronics manufacturing business even possible has its roots in government research and education.
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I hope our present hellscape is teaching people what a bs fallacy the “run the country like a business” is.
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When you run a business your goal is to make a profit. Public projects shouldn't work like that. Didn't James Madison say that if you want a business license, you should prove you're serving the citizens? Correct me if wrong...
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URGENT! Ask Senate to VOTE NO on the bill to sell our public lands to the oil & gas industry, roll back hard-won standards on pollution, tilt the tax & subsidy advantage to oil & gas while killing the green energy industry that will bring jobs, stable low prices for clean power & fuel to USA.
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I am not bragging, but no American President has talked in the same conversation about: the end of war, human rights, sustainable development, tabula rasa diplomacy, global cooperation re: climate change and use of the military as first responders - saving lives instead of killing people.
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I’m from Michigan and let me tell you what happened when “businessman” governor Rick Snyder decided to try and save money for water in Flint
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A business and a government are two different things requiring different skills.
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Exactly.
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Privatizing costs more and results in worse service. The rich get richer and local managers get screwed. Look up the postal service problems for UK's privatization. People who ran local service were bankrupted and even jailed for mistakes upper management refused to fix.
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Mr Bates vs the Post Office
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The billionaire businesses use all the government services without paying taxes. That’s how they get rich.
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So you mean, we have some services which are socialistic in nature? OMG!
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We can bundle weather with mail and pay The Nazi for it, good times!
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Well, if Trump is running it into the ground, we have multiple bankruptcies.
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Government is a service industry. To the people. Not to those governing. They seem to forget they are the servants.
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A government run like a corporation is simply a target for grift. It is a neoliberal circle jerk fantasy.
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The public will only get so much service as is profitable enough for those businesses, and when it isn't, they will cut back on services provided. E.g. no postal service to rural area, parks sold to private owners, schools becoming religious organizations. No special ed services. To name a few.
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A very bad idea by Trump a very bad businessman.
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Privatization means you lose everything. It all goes away. Due to “budgetary constraints”
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If you're following the Parasite Equity business model, it seems to be load it up with debt, rip out every dime you can, then blow it out in bankruptcy.
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🎯
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Unfortunately, "common good" and republicans dont belong in the same sentence!! They're a den of self-serving, greedy THIEVES!
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Well I stop paying taxes that’s for sure. Kind of like tariffs ya know
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If you’re in the position of government needs to be run like a business then you have ZERO clue as to what governments are or provide for you in the first place. Go back to civics class in 8th grade.
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Privatizing government-provided services means less tax, right?
Right???
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📌
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The issue is a lot of MAGA don't believe in community providing services for everyone (unless it's a check they're getting). Economic insecurities have made them focus on the wrong problem. They don't realize the problem is oligarchs stealing our tax money to line their pockets through tax evasion
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Government and Business Have Different Missions

Government:

Serve the public good

Protect rights, consumers, workers, and the environment

Promote the well-being of all citizens

Business:

Maximize shareholder value and profits.

Government is about justice, fairness, & the common good.
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He needs to fit his foot into his mouth
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Privatization only looks to make profits.

Therefore, anything that takes away from profits (rural mail, for example) will end.

Governments are NOT businesses.

They have a totally different purpose.
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It’s always been a Myth that good businessmen make good POTUS’, or other elected Public Officials. Their track record throughout history is not great b/c the Govt is NOT a business! Yet, millions of Americans still buy into this Myth & vote accordingly?🙃
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Wake up The Americans are still asleep and don’t realize this!
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Actually Robert Snap does make a profit. For every Snap dollar spent 3 dollars goes back to the government in taxes. You know this. And hospitals, doctors and nurses and other medical providers all pay taxes on the money they got from medicaid and medicare. Shutting them down means less taxes paid
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onto social security, medicare, state and federal taxes because people will lose their jobs and hospital will close down. So the government does make a profit which they now want to give all that money to the billionaires! Which with all the cuts won't be enough. Cutting the governments throat!
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Love YOU for always speaking g the truth.
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www.instagram.com/reel/DLIVpXsOwir/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
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They want to run the gov’t like a private equity fund not a business. There’s a distinction to be made IMO.
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Anyone who legitimately went to business school knows it can’t work
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Key word: “legitimately”.
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There's a budget bill that wants to take Medicaid from the poor to give tax breaks for the top 1% that indicates an abnormal administration! We will not stand by while the unfortunate are dehumanized even more, our national parks are sold and people get deported by masked thugs!
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Government is *supposed* to run at a loss.
If you run it for profit it's called corruption and... we used to have laws about that.
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democrats: Less government waste!
republicans: Less government waste!
trump: VASTLY MORE UNSCRUPULOUS MIDDLEMEN!
democrats: Wait, what?
republicans: Hell yeah!
democrats: Omg what just happened.
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Privatisation made a mess of the UK. Nothing works anymore. Beware.
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The government is a service provider with many unhappy customers. Even if you go with running the government as a business, they are doing a pretty piss poor job of it.
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Imagine the Yelp reviews! LOL
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Local library Hope BC drug overdose in washroom. Claire MacDonald the unionized librarian teaches children what she calls the Nazi salute and talks about her HA friends stealing things. Low level HA ppl hold meetings. Homeless ppl threaten violence with balled fists multiple times and are not banned
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Maybe an enterprising business person could try to run a private library. Maybe someone will experiment with that in Utah or Tejas or Minnesota. Our mail system in Canada has serious problems so does yours. We already have lots of private schools Yale and Harvard and religious colleges.
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Will work as well as the privatization of public utilities. Look at PG&E.
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Exactly so. Same in the UK. We pay, but get little say in who runs the services.
It doesn't matter if I don't use them; I want them to be there.
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Considering that Trump has bankrupted 6 of his businesses running USA like a business is Tantamount to USA being his 7
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and you get less sevice for a higher cost

and they get govt subsidies and tax breaks
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Look how successful Trump's Numerous Corporations have been -- SIX Bankruptcies and Counting! ... What the hell!.. It was his Daddy's money NOT His!... Trump ONLY spends "Other People's Money -- Never his own!"
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Thank you Mr Reich for about as clear and straightforward an explanation of democracy and promoting the general welfare as I’ve ever heard. Investing in people yields long term gains for all.
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we need more of this please: we need to produce some very basic 'Schoolhouse Rock' for the newer generations (maybe divided up into TikTok/Insta morsels?) to explain what a govt is supposed to look like when it's functioning well, and why we need to get ourselves back there ASAP...
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And even when you do run it as a business, the profit isn't for us. Its for them.

www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-trump-family-presidency-wealth/?embedded-checkout=true
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Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism...
Benito Mussolini
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💪
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hbr.org/2017/03/the-u-s-cannot-be-run-like-a-business
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