http://www.mises.org/story/1926
If only our evil Capitalist rat-catching industry was as efficient as this.
http://www.mises.org/story/1926
If only our evil Capitalist rat-catching industry was as efficient as this.
They should let the guys that deliver the dabbawallahs to get rid of the mice. Talk about getting rid of a problem quickly.
Texas has a position in every county like this. You can run for “official inspector of tanned hides” or some such position though they actually don’t do anything. It’s a joke and people will run for it and get elected just to add it to their resume. Luckily, the state finally quit paying people for the job so it’s just a title. But then we didn’t inherit the Victorian English love of burecracy.
A desi co-worker said “India did for burecracy what the Japanese did for electronics.”
That is hilarious.
I hear these types of stories from my Indian friends about the bureaucracy there. So I believe it. Apparently it is impossible to get anything done there without slipping some money across the table.
The catchy title to this thread definitely caught my attention!!!
In contrast to Delhi, Bombay is a more business-oriented city. The city government is less bureaucratic. Their rat-catchers are expected to turn in 30 rats a day.
Indeed, India has long had a private trade in rat-catching. Some tribes specialize in the trade and are paid by famers to cull rat populations in their fields.
I heard a similar story told by my economics professor, also about India. They used to have a snake problem there, so they started a “head-trophy”-program: Everytime you bring a snake’s head, you get a certain amount of money.
They got startled when they paid three times the money for snake-heads that they had calculated.
They found out that people had started to breed snakes.
I enjoyed the article, right up to this point:
Furthermore, in the name of a potential Global Health Hazard, any foreign nation with plentiful cow droppings on its streets would be declared “evil” and have to be “liberated” as soon as possible.
I enjoyed the article, right up to this point:
In context of the article
But cow droppings are not really a public menace in India. These are industriously collected by villagers in the countryside to be dried, stored and burnt as fuel in cooking and heating. It is a freely available source of energy.
And fortunately for the villagers, the cow dung market got there ahead of the State, before it could set up the Rural Health Protection Department and decree all collecting, processing, buying and selling of cow droppings illegal (unless a state-imposed excise duty is paid in every transaction).
Indeed, if the State had gotten ahead of the villagers, it would soon have realized that cow droppings are more than just natural fertilizer. It would next have to declare such a strategic resource critical to national interests, which must therefore be protected and regulated by the Renewable Energies Agency. Furthermore, in the name of a potential Global Health Hazard, any foreign nation with plentiful cow droppings on its streets would be declared “evil” and have to be “liberated” as soon as possible.
Indeed, one public good propagates another and another…
he was tounge in cheek pointing out that there are indeed free market solutions to the problem and that the state butting it’s head in the business of cow dung removal is not going to help and is justified by the state as for “the better good”. So if they are going to violate one set of rights go ahead and violate all the rest.
Plus it’s the Mises Institute.
he was tounge in cheek pointing out that there are indeed free market solutions to the problem and that the state butting it’s head in the business of cow dung removal is not going to help
To the problem of Middle Eastern terrorism, there are no “free market” solutions. It’s the government’s job.
And the war was not for oil (although sometimes I wish it had been…)
P.S. Oh yes, and they were/are about as evil as it gets.