Nope. There are a class of workers who have unfair protections that none of the rest of us have. We pay their salaries. They should be subject the same market forces we are. They should exist under the same rules that the average taxpayer lives under. They should have the same healthcare and benefit that the average taxpayer has. This applies to everyone in government. If we pay their salaries, they cannot have it better than we do on average.
They should be competent at what they do. They should be qualified. And they should not be protected from losing their jobs if they are no longer necessary or are bad at what they do. This permeates many levels of society. The local example is just the tip of the iceberg. You could go up the chain to city, state and federal and find similar problems.
It's one of the most fundamental questions and one that a lot of people do not understand because they have never run a business (or ran something trivial). There are countries where getting rid of unnecessary or incompetent employees is nearly impossible. This leads to businesses not hiring people because they cannot afford the dead weight or risk involved (also leads to illicit job markets). Being able to manage your workforce is one of the most fundamental tasks in a business. It is no different in schools or government.
We cannot optimize for the best people and best outcomes because we cannot get rid of dead weight. We get stuck with the incompetent because they cannot be fired. This is madness. And, judging from the downvotes, the ignorance does not escape some HN readers. I hope one day they are stuck with people who just burn their cash and they get nothing for it. Maybe then they will understand. It is unbelievable to me that such a fundamental understanding is lacking from society. We let idiots burn the cash we send them. There is no such thing as government money, it's our money. And it must be treated with more respect than to burn it on layers of bureaucracy and incompetence.
They should be competent at what they do. They should be qualified. And they should not be protected from losing their jobs if they are no longer necessary or are bad at what they do. This permeates many levels of society. The local example is just the tip of the iceberg. You could go up the chain to city, state and federal and find similar problems.
It's one of the most fundamental questions and one that a lot of people do not understand because they have never run a business (or ran something trivial). There are countries where getting rid of unnecessary or incompetent employees is nearly impossible. This leads to businesses not hiring people because they cannot afford the dead weight or risk involved (also leads to illicit job markets). Being able to manage your workforce is one of the most fundamental tasks in a business. It is no different in schools or government.
We cannot optimize for the best people and best outcomes because we cannot get rid of dead weight. We get stuck with the incompetent because they cannot be fired. This is madness. And, judging from the downvotes, the ignorance does not escape some HN readers. I hope one day they are stuck with people who just burn their cash and they get nothing for it. Maybe then they will understand. It is unbelievable to me that such a fundamental understanding is lacking from society. We let idiots burn the cash we send them. There is no such thing as government money, it's our money. And it must be treated with more respect than to burn it on layers of bureaucracy and incompetence.