News that Starbucks is closing 500 stores reminds me of something I wrote earlier this year on the difference between the private sector and the public sector.
McDonalds thinks that they can make a lot of money by going head-to-head with Starbucks for customers of expensive coffee.
Will their plans succeed? I haven’t a clue. If they fail, they will be shut down, and the company will suffer a loss.
Contrast this with any number of government programs, including city-run Internet service, economic development programs, “cool cities” nonsense, some public school systems and the like. What happens when they fail? Do they get shut down. Hardly. Thanks to the political process, they live on, and get even more money.
One way to avoid the effects of lingering ill-performing government programs is to avoid starting new programs altogethe