 BECOME A SPONSOR OF THE WORLD'S MAGAZINE.
WHY should you advertise here? We'll tell you.
VA LOAN INFORMATION and VETERANS' MORTGAGES KATRINA & THE LOST CITY OF NEW ORLEANS by Rod Amis New Orleans is the Lost City of America. Rod Amis, publisher of G21: The World's Magazine, once believed one of the best bartenders in New Orleans, tells the story like no one else could. A portion of the proceeds of this book will go to the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Fund. The cooks, servers and restaurant workers of New Orleans have provided fabulous times and memories for millions. Now we must remember them in their time of need.
Buy the book or get a downloadable PDF Copy now!
 AFRICA FRESH! New Voices from the First Continent
An anthology of African writing only featured on the Internet until now, this book features the collected works of writers for the G21 AFRICA section of generator21.net. The eight writers represented here are from around the continent and present an exciting look at cutting-edge fiction and reporting from the first continent today. Buy the book or get a downloadable PDF copy now! |
CULTURE Ten Years of Truthspeak 1996-2006 G21 AFRICA MPHUTHUMI NTABENI, South Africa JOIN OUR MAILING LIST. It contains more jokes than not. HOT LINKS RAHEEM, United States ON FILM BRAD BALFOUR, United States RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT LOU HARRISON-SMITH, New Zealand SMOKE & MIRRORS ROD AMIS, G21 World HQ VOX POPULI YOU, The World THE PREVIOUS EDITION MEET THE G-CREW! These are the people behind this jam-band every week. HOME TABLE OF CONTENTS & BACK ISSUES BECOME A SPONSOR OF THE WORLD'S MAGAZINE.
WHY should you advertise here? We'll tell you. We know you're lazy. Here's a button for a quick translation of this page. Just click on the flag for your country. You're welcome! OR TRY THIS GOOGLE TRANSLATION SERVICE. |
Christchurch, NEW ZEALAND - Have you ever wondered why politicians continue to think they can manage our affairs better than we can? After all most of us have a similar education and can think rationally about our own wants and needs.
It boils down to how bureaucrats are paid - for responsibility not performance. For those remunerated for responsibility the more people that report to them the greater the pay packet. Rather obviously there is a built in incentive to grow the organisation.
If you thought the politicians and bureaucrats where in cohorts you'd not be far off the mark. The bureaucrat will find all manner of ways of recommending another department they've dreamed up to manage our lives for us. "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister" said it all. Even Margaret Thatcher agreed.
Of course if there are more areas to manage there needs to be more ministers of the crown to oversee them. One justifies the other - pretty smart don't you think. Each politician cost the taxpayer around a million dollars each with support staff etc. That is just their beehive teams but there are millions more in unnecessary departments managing us when we can and should be responsible for our own destiny.
If you'll accept the method of remuneration is the main culprit how do we restructure and dilute the empires that has been built to sustain it?
Local bodies would be a good place to start as in the main the bureaucrats have pursued the elected representatives into delegating the budgets to them. The bureaucrats prepare the budgets (appropriately padded) for the councillors to agonise over (at paid meetings) eventually cutting them back to what the bureaucrats wanted in the first place. The Councillors then beat their collective chests in a public charade of unity on behalf of the ratepayers. (Getting the necessary publicity towards the next elections) There was a time when the councillors allocated the funds to the departments and the staff had to work to them. Of course they always spent the last dollar so they didn't get cut back the next financial year.(pay for responsibility again)
What is the solution? Starting at the local body level (there needs to be a few changes in the Local Government Act) the city councils need to take back control of the budgets. Councillors should be barred from appointing themselves or accepting positions in Late's. (Local Authority Trading Enterprises) As few of them have the knowledge or skills to sit on boards of directors, so there would be no conflict of interests.
Of course there has to be a starting point so this years departmental budgets would be useful. Bureaucrats would receive as of right half their current pay as a base salary, the savings in the budget would be split between the staff of the department. This is self regulating as a major saving this year because of deferred maintenance to gain a big bonus could reflect badly next year with a reduced or nil bonus. CEO's would have the incentive to reduce overheads instead of expanding them. You don't need a PhD in economics to understand that.
Will it happen, do the politicians have the intestinal fortitude to enacts the necessary reforms. Ever seen a turkey vote for an early Christmas?
WEB SITE PICK OF THE WEEK: Our pal DAN VANDEMORTEL in San Francisco turned us on to this great cartoon site: Get Your War On. And while you're out trawling, we decided to offer you a two-fer this week.
There's a lot of fun to be had by visiting our Link Partners over at Calabash Music, the World's First Free Trade Music Store. If you like good music, this is the place to go. You can buy songs from some of the world's best new artists for only .99 (USD) - less than a Euro. Enjoy!
| SMOKE & MIRRORS | THE PREVIOUS EVENT | COMING ATTRACTIONS | THE WRITERS/GUIDELINES | |