From Ed Stringham:
a. Private police in San Francisco have had contracts protecting merchants
since the days of the Gold Rush
b. Government police now see these contracts as potentially lucrative ways
for them to make money through overtime work, *but* the government police
cannot compete in terms of price or service
The government police are basically doing two things.
1. They are enacting a bunch of regulations to make it difficult for their
competitors to do their job (Okay, I know this bad stuff happens all the
time).
2. But more amazingly (should I be surprised by anything government does?)
the government police are subsidizing the overtime police workers with
taxpayer money so they can now offer "competitive" rates to approach the
businesses. (E.g. if private police charge $40 per hour and hiring an
overtime cop costs $100 per hour, the police are using funds from elsewhere
in their "business" so the merchant only has to pay the overtime cop $40 and
the overtime cop gets $60 per hour from the police budget. That's not to
mention all of the free equipment such as patrol cars that they have at
their disposal and don't have to pay for.)
Firms engaging in cross subsidization such as this could be clearly be sued
for violating the Clayton Act. And here the cross subsidization is even
worse since it's all taxpayer funds.
Prof. Edward Peter Stringham
Trinity College
Shelby Cullom Davis Endowment
300 Summit Street
Hartford, CT 06106
http://dep.trincoll.edu/davisendowment/stringham/
edward.stringham@...
860-297-2437 office
860-297-5261 fax