Government and Private Sector Equally Competent or Incompetent

We are all for big business, and little business, and Wall Street. When you live in a hut on the prairie of some underdeveloped place, you stay that way without strong institutions and markets.

We are not for specious arguments, like the one that says that the private sector is more efficient than the government. As a principal, it is better to leave things to the private sector (the people), but it remains to be proven that in aggregate, the government has done worse handling what's on its plate when compared to the entire private sector universe.

Some dispute that point by reminding us that when the private sector goofs up, when someone can't cut it and remain profitable, they fail. And that is true. But in the process of creative destruction that is capitalism, an awful lot goes up in that smoke, including money, jobs, lives. There is a cost from someone's pocket. Closer to the point, you don't factor out the private sector failures and run the successes up against the government's entire record.

Here (via Dealbreaker) we have Exxon in court battling New York State over some waste accusations. We contain not a bit of knowledge on whether the charges are legit, or just New York hitting the biggest, most profitable target. The charge is that Exxon poisoned the groundwater. We will ignore that for a moment and focus on what Exxon had to say in response:

The wells are “located in an industrial cesspool that has nothing to do with MTBE,”Peter Sacripanti, a lawyer for Exxon Mobil at McDermott Will & Emery in New York, told jurors in his opening statement.

The groundwater contains pharmaceutical and human waste, dry-cleaning fluid from a company once located near the site, and 70,000 gallons of diesel fuel spill at a nearby bus depot, he said.

(Bloomberg)

Now let us ask ourselves some questions that have nothing to do with Exxon's guilt or innocence. Who, pray tell, spilled pharmaceutical waste? Who spilled dry cleaning fluid? Who spilled 70,000 gallons of diesel fuel? And finally, who possibly contaminated the groundwater with methyl tertiary butyl ether?

Was it the government, or was it the private sector?

Also, who is making an effort to resolve the issue on behalf of people who want clean water?

Is it the government or the private sector?