Government Competition Again?

Recently local business owners expressed their excitement over a "prime" piece of Gulf-front property being developed for a resort. These business owners feel this will bring more business to their area. Sounds great right?

So who is offering the property for development? The US Air Force. That's right. According to the news report, the Federal Government is looking to make better use of "it's" properties. In this case, apparently they'll charge rent for a private company to develop and use the beach property for a resort. What's wrong with that, right?

Here's the thing; is our Federal Government supposed to be in the business of land development? If the land is sitting idle, why not turn the property back over, completely, to private industry. In addition to this, many private enterprise operations (especially off-shore oil rigs) get denied for the area because they'd have an "adverse impact" on the military's ability to perform training missions in the area.

I've ranted on this before and I believe few people see the actual long term damage done by government that controls more and competes more with private sector businesses. Just look at the local trend; city rents prime office space to private company, city gives property to local company and now, Air Force rents out prime beach property for resort development.

Though this issue will probably have little affect in my lifetime, I keep on this because the slow disappearance of free enterprise will eventually lead to the total loss of freedom of the people to conduct commerce without significant government competition.

Pay attention, the returns on your investment are great!

Competition Part II

If you read the previous post about government competing with private sector, you should find this consistent with that story.

Recently the city offered a piece of real estate, valued at $750k, to the company next door...for free. The conditions require the technology company to hire 100 employees at an average salary of $40k over the next five years. Currently the company employs less than 60 people. The property is a little used parking lot owned by the city.

Here's the problem; there is an abundance of available, privately owned, commercial space available in the city. It is one thing for a government to offer tax breaks, but to offer the actual product in direct competition with the private sector...well, I can't help but wonder if this is the beginning of the end of the free-market-private-enterprise system as we know it.

Opinions?

Government vs. Private Sector Competition

A recent local newspaper article touted how the natural gas company, owned by the city, was awarded a $6.5million contract for a complete upgrade of the "energy management and control system" at the National Naval Aviation Museum. To be fair, the gas company is using Siemens, a private company, as a subcontractor. But here's the thing; the gas company is heating and we're in Florida, so the portion of the "energy management and control system" they'd logically be involved in would be the least utilized.

My issue with this is that a public utility, it seems, shouldn't be in competition with private sector contractors for this type of work. I.e. I think of public utilities being set up because providing that utility is somehow cost prohibitive for a private company, but is still needed. Following that logic, it seems that the natural gas company's services should end with the providing of natural gas to the end user, not being a general contractor for entire energy management system upgrades to a national museum.

This may seem trivial to a lot of people, but consider that within the last 6 months the city leased one floor of its main building to a private company. Some local owners of commercial real estate saw that as the city competing in the commercial real estate business. I must admit that until the issue of unfair competition was brought up by one of those owners, I hadn't given it much thought. But now, with this latest contract award, it seems the city government grows ever more controlling.

The more I considered both of these situations, the more it seemed that a trend has begun and if not squelched, this may lead to more government control being the norm.

I am very interested in hearing what you think of this.