Editor:
A story about Yahoo layoffs in the Examiner's January 22 business section ( http://www.examiner.com/a-1173443~Yahoo_Poised_to_Lay_Off_Hundreds.html ) noted, "Through September, Yahoo generated just under $364,000 per employee, well below an average of nearly $565,000 per employee at six other major Internet companies."
Has a similar calculation ever been made for San Francisco's city government? While governments do not declare profits -- presumably the figures above were generated by dividing profits by number of employees -- it should be possible for an auditor to analyze and total the value of all the various goods and services the municipality is providing and divide that figure by the number of city employees. The city has a $6 billion annual budget; are we getting $6 billion a year worth of services, or are we getting shafted even compared to the shareholders of underperforming companies like Yahoo?
Here's a thought experiment: Might we all be better off if the government just closed shop except for collecting money, and cut each of the city's estimated 801,377 residents a check for $7000 or so each year? Which would you prefer to have this year -- the stuff you're getting from local government, or $7,000 in cash?
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
Outreach Director, Libertarian Party of San Francisco