Both the Senate and the House have barbershops. The Senate barbershop is federally subsidized, while the House barbershop is a private for profit business.

So which is more efficient? Which provides the best service for the lowest price?

According to The Daily there's no contest .


“While the Senate barbershop is federally subsidized, the House barbershop is a private business. Its three employees, one of whom is part time, are independent contractors. The House barbershop was privatized in 1994, a decision that House Republicans made after they took control of the lower chamber for the first time in decades.

The dueling business models of the congressional barbershops have produced different financial results. While the Senate barbershop required a $300,000 federal bailout last year, the House barbershop turned a profit. And while Senate Hair Care Services, the formal name for the Senate barbershop, is not charged a dime for its work space, House Cuts pays the government $2,000 to $3,000 in rent each year.”

Cut above the rest - The Daily (http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/02/27/022712-news-house-barbershop-1-3/)

No surprise there . You would think that the government would be good at the haircut business ,given how often we get fleeced .


But then again... Maybe it's the quality of the hair styling .
http://varifrank.com/images/Preacher_Reid.jpg

Holy sh!t, it must be a slow news day LOL!

I think it is a good illustration of the difference between private run business and government run business. I am also not pleased that the US taxpayer had to shell out $ 300,000 so Senators can get a hair cut. What are they doing ? Getting hair cuts for free ?

Didn't Obama just say something about eliminating government waste?

Interesting also that the House cuts are cheaper and that some Dems even wonder why the Senate shop is a floop.


The prices for his services are cheaper than those of the Senate. While the Senate barbershop charges $23 for a trim with water but no shampoo and $20 for a shave, the House barbershop charges $17 and $10.

Plus, his shop is in the Rayburn House Office Building, farther from the two adjoining House buildings than is the Senate’s barbershop. And he has three staff members versus 11 in the Senate.

Even Democrats say the fiscal woes of the Senate barbershop do not reflect well on the upper chamber. Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill. told The Daily that “the House does the people’s business and efficiently, while the Senate doesn’t give taxpayers and voters top priority.”

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. said privatizing government does not appeal to him, but “I would like to know why the Senate barbershop is running its business into the red.

You can't find a more perfect example of how dysfunctional the government is and yet Conyers wouldn't budge. If the feds can't run their own barber shop I can only imagine how horrible they'll be at health care.

What a beatup obviously a business with many more potential customers and a tight budget should make a profit but there must be some scruffy looking reps. One has to wonder with 11 barbers how long each day Senators spend preening themselves at public expense, with a staff ratio like that they would visit every day, this is where the real story is

The way I see it ;having a barbershop in the Senate or House offices is a luxury that they should pay for out of their own pockets. Most of the Senators are quite wealthy.

Hello tom:

Yeah, government doesn't have any business running business's. But, they DO have a role in the economy like spurring investment in areas where we have a national interest.

excon

What does spurring investment mean ? Does it mean stalling on oil pipeline permits ;telling Senators to vote against the pipe line... discovering it hurts politically... and then announcing that the solution is to build the pipeline from it's destination ,half way to the source of the oil that would flow in the pipeline ? A sort of pipeline to nowhere ?

Or is it the way the Energy Dept has been handing those loan guarantees to crony belly up solar and wind companies ?

You know what really spurs investment ? Let people keep their money and let them decide what they want to spend it on.

You know what really spurs investment ? Let people keep their money and let them decide what they want to spend it on.

I think that has been tried over the last couple of years, how's that working out for you? People decided they weren't spending, they either paid down debt or they kept their money in the bank. These are old theories are fodder for people who don't understand economics.

There is such a thing as reverse psychology where people do the opposite to what government and economists expect they are going to do and what do you find, the economy is in unchartered waters and that is exactly what has been happening. The more stimilus the more people have said bad times are coming I need to keep my cash, hunker down and cut my spending. Even in economies where things are good, retail is going backwards because all the news says its going to get worse and it does. The only way out of this is spending on infurstructure where jobs are created, but printing money does nothing.

Look at the Greek economy as an example $7Billion has disappeared from the banking system since their crisis began. They borrow money to pay down their debt and even with a huge discount the situation just gets worse. Conventional wisdom says if you reduce the size of the debt it becomes manageable, but it isn't, because paying down debt doesn't drive growth

You know what really spurs investment ? Let people keep their money and let them decide what they want to spend it on.Hello again, tom:

And, how many of them would build a sidewalk in front of your house??

Bwa, ha ha ha.

excon

Is that what you call job creating ? Making sidewalks ?

Is that what you call job creating ? Making sidewalks ?Hello tom:

Yup.

excon

Lol return to 1930s everyone filling pot holes.

lol return to 1930s everyone filling pot holes.Hello again, tom:

Well, let's update it.. They'll be fixing bridges and roads. They're NOT in good shape. You drive on bridges, don't you?

Let me ask you this. The government OWNS the bridges. They NEED fixing. They're NOT going to fix themselves. Government IS going to hire people to fix them at SOME time or another. It's that, or they'll fall down. Is it better to wait, or fix them now? You DO drive on bridges, don't you?

excon

That will not solve the economy . Only when private employers are hiring and people are buying then the economy will recover ,and consequently the government revenue expands to pay for those bridges.

that will not solve the economy . only when private employers are hiring Hello again, tom:

Let's examine that...

The government does not own a construction company. If bridges are going to be fixed, they're going to be fixed by PRIVATE INDUSTRY. When bridges are fixed, new steel has to be installed. The government doesn't OWN steel mills, either. They're owned by private companies. The steel mills will have to RAMP up. They'll HIRE, and they'll BUY raw materials.. Who are the suppliers of raw materials? MORE private companies... Who transports these raw materials to the plant, and the finished product to the bridge?? MORE private companies, still.

ALL of those workers will pay mortgages, and buy food, and buy cars...

And, I haven't yet mentioned concrete or lumber.

excon

So I take it then that bad bridges caused the economic collapse and fixing them will restore the economy .
By me in the bluest of blue states. The Tappan Zee bridge has been in need of replacement for years ,in good times and bad. Plans have been submitted time and time again ,and not a shovel has been put in the ground to begin. This is what happens with most big project government managed projects . The estimated costs for the project escalated daily and the only thing I'm sure of is that when it is done... finally.. maybe in my life time... the cost over runs will be a major scandal ;the environmentalists will throw monkee wrenches into any approved plan;it will be modified a dozen times after the project begins ,and it won't have fixed any long term transportation issues. It will in time open ,and then the planners will realize that they did not properly estimate congestion... and that's just one bridge .

Why do you think that NASA is getting out of the business of designing and subcontracting out rockets ? Because private enterprise does it better .

that will not solve the economy . only when private employers are hiring and people are buying then the economy will recover ,and consequently the government revenue expands to pay for those bridges.

So your argument is do nothing and the economy will fix itsself. In order for industry to have confidence they need to see money flowing, companies don't hire until the order book improves, no one says things will improve one day, we'll just build inventory until it does. So building or maintaining infurstructure gets the money flowing in some industries and this trickles down to other industries. Governments have the ability to borrow money when banks aren't lending and so they don't wait for revenue to improve before they start a project or implement a policy. Their thinking is leading from the front, not bringup up the rear. With thinking like yours it is no wonder your country is in a hole

Why do you think that NASA is getting out of the business of designing and subcontracting out rockets ? Because private enterprise does it better .Hello again, tom:

Bull.

If left up to private capital, which is where this conversation started, the bridge would NEVER have been built in the first place.

excon

Actually that is where you took the conversation.This was originally about government run barbershops . The inefficiencies that I detailed on the single bridge in NY are the same inefficiencies that plague all government run institutions ,including barbershops ,Port Authorities ,Bridge and Tunnel projects etc.

Yes bridges need to be built ; but that is true in good times and bad . If you are using it as an alternative to a robust economy then you are wasting money.

Tom

NASA is moving because there are contractors who have the ability to provide the vehicles they want, if NASA hadn't established the market in the first place these contractors would not exist. Private capital will not pioneer unless they have a clear indication that the market exists. But NASA also proved something else, for the time being the Moon is not a viable place to develop a mining industry, so we don't see any rush to invest capital in developing Moon mines. We didn't see any private capital providing the next generation of space vehicle until NASA indicated that it both wanted the vehicles and was vacating the field. In fact what private industry has come up with isn't next generation, just incremental development of existing technology, technology that can be exploited for profit

As far as barbershops are concerned the technology was settled long ago but no private enterpreneur invested capital in proving the service to Congress so the government created the market. Obviously it is time to vacate and allow private enterprise to take over

Of course if you go back to it's origins ,it wasn't any government agency that spurred the advent of the age of aviation. I wonder how the Wright Brothers did it without that government contract ? The government didn't develop the DC-3 . We had Boeing and Martin and Douglas develop the airplanes. And with that innovation came the business associated with air transportation
,
As for the moon ; the few short manned missions there 40 years ago were not enough to determine anything. The Chinese will go there and colonize it .

The reason we won the race to the moon was because the private sector did the work ,not the government barbershop version the Soviets had .But we go away from that model as NASA matured ;and that is one of the big reasons human space exploration is stuck in low earth orbit.

NASA is spending a fortune on it's own versions of reusable launch vehicles .If government money is involved ,then it should go as a prize for the best system that private companies can develop. Something similar to the X Prize Ansari X Prize where a non-profit organization sets up a cash prize competition ,with the prize going to the company that accomplishes the goal of flying a reusable vehicle to the moon and back .

This is how the Transcontinental Rail Road was built . It took 7 years to build it across the country . In contrast ,it took most of a decade after 9-11 for the various government agencies to have plan for rebuilding ground zero.

Tom you are speaking of a different age where aircraft could be cobbled together in a shed and people weren't motivated by profit. The DC3 was a response to commercial aviation the market developed and you had madmen like Howard Hawks developing aircraft.

I'll be surprised if the Chinese colonise the Moon but you can see that a government can have a focus to achieve for national prestige. The USA once had this but only when spurred into action by Russia. The Chinese are now spurred into action by the USA even if they are late comers, but we should ask ourselves why the USA abandoned the Moon, was it lack of competition?

I also know of a transcontential railway that was built by government because it would not have been built otherwise. What we are seeing is a different emphasis in different places but you cannot leave nation building to private enterprise, because what you get piecemiel development