tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13589532.post1433623993841593728..comments2023-10-09T04:11:47.358-07:00Comments on Not A Potted Plant: Pay To SprayBurt Likkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16060980744675990412noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13589532.post-23337087907335004652010-10-06T14:48:36.092-07:002010-10-06T14:48:36.092-07:00this is not a volunteer fire department. It is a m...<i>this is not a volunteer fire department. It is a municipal fire department that offers service to people outside city limits</i><br /><br />Municipal fire departments are often volunteer fire departments, too. Do we know that this particular fire department was not both?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13589532.post-91067582636328900382010-10-06T03:20:46.577-07:002010-10-06T03:20:46.577-07:00Thanks, I missed that detail.Thanks, I missed that detail.Maxwell Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17982842471343044848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13589532.post-79802568842422111662010-10-05T20:24:03.350-07:002010-10-05T20:24:03.350-07:00@Maxwell James -- this is not a volunteer fire dep...<b>@Maxwell James</b> -- this is not a volunteer fire department. It is a municipal fire department that offers service to people outside city limits -- in other words, it is acting like a private company for areas outside those from which it draws taxpayer support and provides true public service. There are other <a href="http://www.ruralmetro.com/about_ourhistory.asp" rel="nofollow">for-profit businesses that do this sort of thing</a>, but here we're dealing with something of a hybrid.<br /><br />I'm not sure if <b>@Mythago</b> is critical of the idea of a for-profit emergency services company, with the offering of a "subscription service" by a (quasi-)public utility, or my suggestion about the emergency services lien.Burt Likkohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16060980744675990412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13589532.post-18236628465066799812010-10-05T17:00:36.813-07:002010-10-05T17:00:36.813-07:00Like most vaguely libertarian solutions, this only...Like most vaguely libertarian solutions, this only works in Utopia, not the real world. <br /><br />And surely I can't be the only person here who has had a company claim they never received your payment, or have a 'computer error' that prevents them from accessing your payment record, bill you twice, or simply misplace evidence of payment. When your house is burning down is really not the time when you want to have to produce a receipt showing, in fact, you did pay your $75 this year.<br /><br />Yes, there are poor people who misuse public services, just as there are rich people who do - in California lots of firefighters complain that their putting out fires in wilderness areas amounts to protecting summer homes for the wealthy.mythagohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07138471078836187498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13589532.post-32361083477715315242010-10-05T14:42:02.582-07:002010-10-05T14:42:02.582-07:00For instance, here's a budget for a fire depar...For instance, <a href="http://troymi.gov/budget/2007-2008/157-164%20%20Fire.pdf" rel="nofollow">here's</a> a budget for a fire department that is largely staffed by volunteers. Supplies (which I presume would be the main marginal cost once the firefighters arrived on the scene) come to a whopping 7% of it. Am I missing something?Maxwell Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17982842471343044848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13589532.post-65039403188266984712010-10-05T14:18:35.443-07:002010-10-05T14:18:35.443-07:00There's something I don't understand here....There's something I don't understand here. Given that this was a volunteer fire department, could not individual firefighters have <i>volunteered</i> to put out the fire? <br /><br />Especially given that once they were on the scene waiting for the neighbor's property to catch fire, the marginal cost of water and equipment depreciation could not have been that great.Maxwell Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17982842471343044848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13589532.post-66727163649875412512010-10-05T11:12:31.655-07:002010-10-05T11:12:31.655-07:00The IRS and most state tax collection agencies alr...The IRS and most state tax collection agencies already jump the line, so the precedent has already been set. With that noted, I've no quarrel with the idea that careful thought should be given to the idea before it is implemented.<br /><br />And I was quite surprised myself that my mortgage lender in TN did not do exactly what you suggest. My guess is that the national lender simply did not want to bother with the details of learning which local service did what; the transaction costs of doing so would be high and probably no one has ever done the math of comparing structure loss experience or medical expense loss expenses to the manpower cost for determining when and how to subscribe those emergency services.Burt Likkohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16060980744675990412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13589532.post-77245772798869997902010-10-05T06:27:24.735-07:002010-10-05T06:27:24.735-07:00Given how the law presently stands, I am surprised...Given how the law presently stands, I am surprised that mortgage holders and insurance companies do not themselves contract for these services and bill them to the escrow account.<br /><br />I'm not a lawyer, but it seems that allowing a third party to "jump the line" in front of the mortgage holder would set a bad precedent, and would need to be carefully gamed out for its effects on mortgage rates, etc.Dr. Φhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14086783503820477029noreply@blogger.com