Can we put an end to the lie that the "private sector" does is cheaper and better?

[Kelvin Mace]

I just did a little digging to discover what we have paid soldiers throughout American history. Since Revolutionary War records were sparse and it would be hard to adjust to today's dollars I skipped it. Also, I had a hard time turning up pay chart info for the Korean War and the Gulf War-I, but as I didn't have all day I took what I could find:

Base monthly pay of a Sergeant (E-5 equivalent) through history in 2009 dollars

Civil War - $235
WW One - $995
WW TWO - $908
Vietnam - $1,608
Iraq/Afghanistan - $2,414

Blackwater Mercenary - $9,165*

*Based on a cost to the U.S. government of $1,222 per day, and arbitrarily assuming Blackwater kept 75% of that amount.


Sources:

"The Civil War Dictionary" by Mark M. Boatner
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,764734-1,00.html
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/9863330/1964-Military-Pay-Chart
http://www.militaryfactory.com/military_pay_scale.asp
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/washington/01cnd-blackwater.html?bl=&ei=5087&en=2794af83a6d6c99c&ex=1191556800&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1191675824-t7eC7GCEfQZ1srzPNrSoCw

Depending on the source you go to, it costs between $150,000 - $250,000 to simply train an Army soldier (certainly lots more for elite special forces type). Blackwater get to buy up these people with ZERO training cost and probably minimal long term benefits (no VA hospitals for mercenary sustained injuries/illness) and then charge over $400,000 per soldier, per month to the U.S. Taxpayer.

Put another way, EACH MONTH, we spend on EACH mercenary what it costs to train two soldiers.

This is cheaper? This is more efficient? Seems to me this is government-subsidized private armies.

Of course, the return of the draft would end this BS tomorrow, with the added benefit of getting us the hell out of two wars once all those teabaggers found themselves (or their children) schlepping 85 lbs of combat gear around the Middle East.

.

[RandomThoughts]

1. Yep, mercenaries is to create a corporate army.

It is just a money army, fighting for dollars, not ideas. Although some can have ideas, the concept is about money.

They are also the people that protect things like WTO meetings and G20 mettings I would guess also.

Although they can be good people, they are trying to move power to those with money, on the assumption that having money is because a person is 'blessed' and suppose to lead.

[Kelvin Mace]

4. Yes, interesting that the government

is handing money to an organization which may over throw it.

[arbusto_baboso]

2. It isn't just soldiers, either.

It's pretty much every other area.

Government can do it cheaper, period.

After all, the government doesn't have to worry about paying greedy shareholders. The best a government agency has to do is break even!

[Kelvin Mace]

21. My point exactly

I do not understand why these people can't understand this simple equation:


Private sector cost to provide a service:

Cost + Kickbacks + PAC Donations + Shareholder Profit + CEO bonuses + Rate of Inflation Adj (x3) = Consumer Cost

Public Sector Cost:

Cost + Rate of Inflation Adj = Consumer Cost

[OHdem10]

3. If you can get Democrats stay on one issue more than five minutes.

hooray.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. My trouble: "...I skipped it. Also, I had a hard time turning up..."

:shrug:


However, there's a good chance it's accurate.

[phantom power]

6. We could, but that would require upsetting republicans.

And that's off the table in our Brave New Post Partisan Democratic Party.

[daylan b]

7. When I worked as a consultant doing NEPA work it was explained

to me as the difference between a wife and a prostitute. Yes, the prostitute is going to cost you more for that hour. However, she's gone when you are done with her and over the long run much cheaper.

[arbusto_baboso]

8. A bad and inaccurate analogy.

It would be closer to the truth to say that a government contractor is more like a prostitute that continually tells you that "cost overruns" have made a previously agreed upon price invalid and tells you that you therefore have to pay more, and then gets you to sign a long-term contract for her services and never delivers what she promises for the prices she quoted.

[Hannah Bell]

9. & poisons the kids to boot.

[Phil The Cat]

12. Distribution for Need, Not Production for Greed!

Abolish private ownership of land, resources, transportation!

Jobs should be assigned based on society's requirements, not personal prejudice or preference!

Meat and processed food should be banned!

Every person within our borders should have the necessities of life - food, shelter, clothing, medical care, intellectual stimulation, and entertainment - regardless of whether they can enrich a fat repug!

End the private sector NOW! We should live and work for each other, not ourselves!

[Recursion]

15. No meat?

If I can't eat pasture-raised bacon I want no part in your revolution...

[Phil The Cat]

16. No meat is hard for me, too

But meat is murder! And beoynd that, it is environmentally damaging!

[Recursion]

17. Not if it's done right (well, it's still killing, but it can be environmentally good)

A properly pastured and rotated ecosystem with cows, chickens, and pigs cleaning up after each other actually improves the soil and water over time.

[Kelvin Mace]

25. I'm all for the banning of factory farming

unless you make the owners pay the FULL environmental cost of the process. Of course, as soon as you do that, family farms can complete and actually underprice the big guys since they can deliver cheaper regionally.

As to processed food, I am all for banning HFC and cutting fillers and anything not absolutely essential to the food from the ingredient list.

[Fla_Democrat]

23. Wow

:wow:
So, I shouldn't own my house, or my car. I should work where society says I should, not where I want to. What I eat should be strictly controlled. All of my 'necessities', I am assuming as determined by someone else, should be provided for me.

No thanks, I don't think I would enjoy my life as a slave. :smoke:

[Kelvin Mace]

26. Agreed

that was tried many times and failed miserably in all instances.

[Kelvin Mace]

24. Hmmmm

Think you have gone to far to the left even for me.

Resources and transportation? Yeah, you got a good argument there, you even have something that is achievable politically given enough time (I'm guessing no less than 50 years).

Private ownership of land?

You just got yourself a civil war. You have also provided a post that Freepers can point to as evidence we want to seize private land.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. Not quite...

The danger with prostitutes is:

1) They can give you venereal disease, because they'll do anyone for money.

2) They are not necessarily "gone when you are done with ..." Ask David Vitter and Elliot Spitzer

3) Prostitutes can roll you for your money.

4) They work for pimps who may see you as an on-going money source despite your desire for discrete transactions which when done, are done.

5) In the long run it cost WAY more for sex with a prostitute than with your wife. Ask a divorce lawyer.

Whoever explained it to you has some nasty surprises coming to them about their views on prostitutes.

[daylan b]

18. I'm pretty sure it was an analogy and not a scientific comparison.

But I'll check with him just to make sure.

[Kelvin Mace]

20. Just point it out

in case he was going beyond the analogy stage :)

[Festivito]

19. That's piss-poor accounting bordering on mental illness.

Seriously.

[KansDem]

10. This was put to the test during the health-care "debate"

Tea-baggers shilling for the health-care corps kept babbling on about "freedom." Then finally it came to the fore: Health-care corps simply could not provide health-care as cheaply as the US government. They would go "out of business."

But we still got no public-financed, public option, and the health-care CEOs are still getting 1/3 of our health-care dollars...

[Cleita]

13. I hope so. n/t

[muntrv]

14. You know about that Arizona prison break recently? That was a PRIVATE prison!

:evilgrin:

[Kelvin Mace]

22. Yes, and if there was ever a service

that has NO business in "private" hands it is the prison system.

[DailyGrind51]

27. The cost to "meter - park" in Chicago has esacalated since Daley privatized meters.

And, you better bring a pocket full of quarters! Imagine someone interviewing for a job, knowing that his meter is about to expire and he/she will have to use half of his/her next unemployment check to pay for a very expensive ticket!

[Kelvin Mace]

28. I had forgotten about that

a perfect example of what I am talking about.