Over the past several decades, different levels of government have contracted out basic public services. This is often far less efficient. The main cost savings occur because the private vendor often pays the workers less than the civil service counterpart.

Time to De-Privatize – The American Prospect

While I’m busy writing about things that will look odd in a hundred years. How has it taken us forty years to understand that you can’t stack margin of 10% on multiple layers of public services and expect value for money?

The maths don’t work but we insist on doing it.

For instance, the National Bureau of Statistics said 17.7 million babies were born in 2000. But when that cohort reached age 10 in the 2010 census, only about 14.4 million were counted. By the time they graduated middle school in 2015, only about 14.2 million walked across the stage. About 3.5 million people from a single year were unaccounted for.

China fact (?) of the day – Marginal REVOLUTION

China panic is going to look odd in fifty years. They’re not even sure how many people they have but we’re supposed to believe that they have complete control of each person in the country.

Both things cannot be true at the same time.