Interesting pattern here: manufacture a crisis (book banning complaints → funding cuts), then propose private "efficiency" as the solution. Meanwhile, this library was founded in 1799, is the second-oldest in Virginia, just won the 2024 state Library of the Year award, and had 400k+ checkouts last year. Hardly sounds broken.
Billionaires buy elections, elected officials break funding for public facilities, billionaires get tax cuts, public facilities get bought out with tax cuts.
I wonder when they start introducing their own currencies like in the old mining towns.
The library should serve the entire community, not a loud minority or even exclusively the majority. If 20% of the community wants LGBTQ books, 30% don't, and 50% don't care, why should the 30% be able to decide that the other 20% shouldn't have access to these books? The majority should not be able to strip rights that the minority should have access to. Tyranny of the majority is a real thing.
I find it hard to believe that even a plurality wants these books banned. Do we have proportions, or is it just a number of complaints?
> the valorization of profit has blinded them to seeing the advantages of the public good as a worthy bottom line
This is, IMO, the critical line, and also one of the deepest problems in the world (and especially America).
A focus on profit is so frequently completely opposed to human wellbeing and a flourishing society. Just look at health insurance companies for a prime example: they make profit by denying claims. The result is a catastrophically expensive insurance bureaucracy and worse health outcomes. Not to mention the extreme stress any American feels when interacting with an insurance company over any meaningful amount of money. (Which I’ve experienced, and I have far better coverage than the average American.)
These companies are so clearly, obviously bad for human flourishing. But profit is great!
The incentives are so deeply messed up. Our economy only allows profit as an incentive, which works well when aligned with human wellbeing-being. But as the economy grows, companies consolidate, and profit growth is still expected, nearly every single sector looks for ways to cut costs. And with fewer competitors, it’s easier and easier for entrenched, powerful companies to raise prices and reduce quality with little consequence.
This is clearly bad for human flourishing. But profits are fantastic!
Just because profit is actually aligned with human flourishing in a couple sectors doesn’t mean the system as a whole will continue scaling effectively. It’s clearly not, and it must change to avoid completely suffocating us.
1) Americans spend less than OECD average out of pocket as a percentage of healthcare costs. This is much larger in absolute terms but the multiplier - cost of healthcare is nearly entirely due to provider costs.
2) Health outcomes are really different between states despite having basically the same system. demographically controlled iirc outcomes are not different and sometimes better (e.g. japanese americans).
3) Insurance company profits are pretty low relative to cost of healthcare. while the bureaucracy is more expensive its not "catastrophically" by any means and iirc there are oecd countries with similar overhead although im too lazy to search on myvphone.
4) Rationing healthcare has to and does happen in all advanced economies. again modulo cost in the us, id rather it happen via money than government or inforrmal scarcity (like in Canada).
4a) Frankly while i dont have evidence for this 4a, lookinng at us spending by age (and eg the enormous money usg spends on kidney dialysis for people thay mostly just die in a few years anyway), I wonder if an important reason US providers are so expensive is, we ration limited supply properly for most people but then don't ration keeping a bedridden grandma alive for 6 more months at extreme cost, cause hey, the govt pays.
> Just look at health insurance companies for a prime example: they make profit by denying claims.
Ok but why do people pick those insurance companies?
We see this across the board too and not just insurance companies. Governments low to pick the lowest bidder who then has massive cost overruns which has to put them above the second lowest bid in the end. Why is counter party risk never accounted for?
It is worth noting that per the linked article below[0]. The library has a system for preventing readers under the age of 18 from accessing the books in the New Adult section of the library, and it's one that requires parents to opt into their child having access to those materials.
Brendan Ballou’s book “Plunder” is an excellent read about the effects of private equity across industries, if you want to go deeper on the topic. I recently had him on my podcast talking about the effects of PE in HVAC. There are quirks in each realm but the themes are common (I guess in libraries, too).
I increasingly think that our society isn't sustainable without some recalibration of the notion of responsibility, liability, justice and due process. The problem we face is that it is very easy for unscrupulous operators to exploit loopholes and cause lots of damage, but the process for holding them accountable faces a heavy burden of proof and itself can be exploited (e.g., by dragging out lawsuits for years).
We need some kind of sliding scale where certain actions by people who either "should have known better" (i.e., are exploiting insider knowledge) or "had no basis for acting" (i.e., are rich enough to not need to make any more money) can be quickly curtailed without a need to specifically prove everything that they did. Something loosely akin to "if you had a billion dollars, you'd better be able to affirmatively prove you did everything squeaky clean or we're just going to take $500 million".
The framing here seems intentionally deceptive. Nobody is "fighting off" a "takeover". It's more like the city is deciding between continuing to run the library itself, or contracting it out. Nor is the fact that the company is owned by private equity especially relevant, except in the general belief that things run by private equity are not very good. I think that the use of the term "takeover" isn't a mistake though, it seems like it's meant to make people think that private equity is somehow "buying out" the library and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
21 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 46.1 ms ] thread>Providing for a community night not be profitable, but that doesn't make it wrong
>Efficiency shouldn't always be a goal
If you don't care about profit or efficiency then you are being wasteful and are not effectively delivering value.
I wonder when they start introducing their own currencies like in the old mining towns.
Back to feudalism we go, election by election.
I find it hard to believe that even a plurality wants these books banned. Do we have proportions, or is it just a number of complaints?
This is, IMO, the critical line, and also one of the deepest problems in the world (and especially America).
A focus on profit is so frequently completely opposed to human wellbeing and a flourishing society. Just look at health insurance companies for a prime example: they make profit by denying claims. The result is a catastrophically expensive insurance bureaucracy and worse health outcomes. Not to mention the extreme stress any American feels when interacting with an insurance company over any meaningful amount of money. (Which I’ve experienced, and I have far better coverage than the average American.)
These companies are so clearly, obviously bad for human flourishing. But profit is great!
The incentives are so deeply messed up. Our economy only allows profit as an incentive, which works well when aligned with human wellbeing-being. But as the economy grows, companies consolidate, and profit growth is still expected, nearly every single sector looks for ways to cut costs. And with fewer competitors, it’s easier and easier for entrenched, powerful companies to raise prices and reduce quality with little consequence.
This is clearly bad for human flourishing. But profits are fantastic!
Just because profit is actually aligned with human flourishing in a couple sectors doesn’t mean the system as a whole will continue scaling effectively. It’s clearly not, and it must change to avoid completely suffocating us.
1) Americans spend less than OECD average out of pocket as a percentage of healthcare costs. This is much larger in absolute terms but the multiplier - cost of healthcare is nearly entirely due to provider costs.
2) Health outcomes are really different between states despite having basically the same system. demographically controlled iirc outcomes are not different and sometimes better (e.g. japanese americans).
3) Insurance company profits are pretty low relative to cost of healthcare. while the bureaucracy is more expensive its not "catastrophically" by any means and iirc there are oecd countries with similar overhead although im too lazy to search on myvphone.
4) Rationing healthcare has to and does happen in all advanced economies. again modulo cost in the us, id rather it happen via money than government or inforrmal scarcity (like in Canada).
4a) Frankly while i dont have evidence for this 4a, lookinng at us spending by age (and eg the enormous money usg spends on kidney dialysis for people thay mostly just die in a few years anyway), I wonder if an important reason US providers are so expensive is, we ration limited supply properly for most people but then don't ration keeping a bedridden grandma alive for 6 more months at extreme cost, cause hey, the govt pays.
Ok but why do people pick those insurance companies?
We see this across the board too and not just insurance companies. Governments low to pick the lowest bidder who then has massive cost overruns which has to put them above the second lowest bid in the end. Why is counter party risk never accounted for?
https://www.advocate.com/news/front-royal-samuels-library-co...
Here's an opinion pledge where they stated their demands: https://royalexaminer.com/parents-matter-make-the-pledge/
It is worth noting that per the linked article below[0]. The library has a system for preventing readers under the age of 18 from accessing the books in the New Adult section of the library, and it's one that requires parents to opt into their child having access to those materials.
[0]: https://www.nvdaily.com/nvdaily/catholic-library-supporters-...
Books:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91010302-you-need-to-chi... ref: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16YUZFgYY2/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53241064-this-is-why-the... ref: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16kKwC3PDD/
Found the list: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRzUaZiy2h4gi-c_...
Here’s that episode if any of you are curious: https://www.heatpumped.org/p/plunder-how-private-equity-is-r...
We need some kind of sliding scale where certain actions by people who either "should have known better" (i.e., are exploiting insider knowledge) or "had no basis for acting" (i.e., are rich enough to not need to make any more money) can be quickly curtailed without a need to specifically prove everything that they did. Something loosely akin to "if you had a billion dollars, you'd better be able to affirmatively prove you did everything squeaky clean or we're just going to take $500 million".