Libertarian Fire Service

A situation in which a valuable asset burns to the ground while fireman are standing next to it is absurd. It doesn't really matter whether it's because of insurance, or because of libertarian theory, or whether fighting the fire would create a economic disincentive- it's simply a sad sign of the times when we end up with fireman not putting out a fire.

Funkenpants wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

This isn't a "sad sign of the times."

I think it's more a case of you not getting it. A situation in which a valuable asset burns to the ground while fireman are standing next to it is absurd. It doesn't really matter whether it's because of insurance, or because of libertarian theory, or whether fighting the fire would create a economic disincentive- it's simply a sad sign of the times when we end up with fireman not putting out a fire.

Which times is it a sign of, then? It's been a common practice for at least 60 years.

Jayhawker wrote:

That's why a few of us have noted that this was an unfortunate example of what a Libertarian policies would bring to the rest of us. They way to avoid these kinds of issues is not to be afraid of paying taxes. Social services are a good thing.

Ah, I confess I didn't see how this was a factor in the Libertarianism debate. Now I see the point, and I agree. If social services are made optional most people will probably opt out and this sort of thing would be common.

Of course, it would be their right to be stupid but there are risks to others too.

Jayhawker wrote:

Which times is it a sign of, then? It's been a common practice for at least 60 years.

Thankfully not in any place I've ever lived. Creating a system in which a valuable asset like a house can be destroyed over the lack of payment of a $75 fee doesn't make any sense. At a minimum, there should be a mechanism in which the fire department puts out the fire, then is able to slap a lien on the house for cost of services rendered, which would be set at a far higher cost than the cost of the annual fee. This would create the necessary incentive to participate and prevent the social cost of homes being unnecessarily destroyed.

-Edited to take out inflammatory stuff-

I'm 99% with Jayhawker on this one. The only difference between us is that I think it should've been in the fire department's best interest to at least offer to fight the fire . . . at the price of covering the entire fire department's costs for one year.

I think people are incorrectly equating this fire department (or the city that ran it) with Marcus Licinius Crassus, when in reality that's simply not the case. The Mayor of South Fulton made the difficult decision to not force his city to pay for the entire county's fire service, the County Treasurer (I'm assuming here) made the difficult decision not to reimburse the city with tax revenue to support county fire service, and Cranick made the decision to pay his electricity bill instead of gambling on there actually being a fire.

And Cranick lost.

edit: added link for Crassus.

Funkenpants wrote:

At a minimum, there should be a mechanism in which the fire department puts out the fire, then is able to slap a lien on the house for cost of services rendered, which would be set at a far higher cost than the cost of the annual fee. This would create the necessary incentive to participate and prevent the social cost of homes being unnecessarily destroyed.

You're right. That facility should be there. I wouldn't expect the fireman on the ground to be able to make a call like that, so something of the sort should be instituted after this.

Funkenpants wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

Which times is it a sign of, then? It's been a common practice for at least 60 years.

Thankfully not in any place I've ever lived. Creating a system in which a valuable asset like a house can be destroyed over the lack of payment of a $75 fee doesn't make any sense. At a minimum, there should be a mechanism in which the fire department puts out the fire, then is able to slap a lien on the house for cost of services rendered, which would be set at a far higher cost than the cost of the annual fee. This would create the necessary incentive to participate and prevent the social cost of homes being unnecessarily destroyed.

We are actually pretty close to agreement on this. I'm not arguing that this is a great way to run a fire service. In fact, I think it is terrible. But I've run across articles in Reason and other libertarian magazines that were promoting this as a perfect example of why the government does not need to be in the fire protection business 20 years ago.

Your idea about the lien is a good one, except for the owner of the fire department. He doesn't pay his bills with liens. He needs cash. And if they want people to actually pay up front, they can't be willing to put out fires after the fact. This is why privatizing things like fire protection is a real bad idea.

I spoke with my buddy the fire chief about this and he said that the inside story on this is that the county suggested incorporating the fire departments and instituting a $50/year tax for homeowners to cover the cost of fire response but the anti tax nutbars kept shouting it down at county council meetings. Under threat of elections, the county council elected instead to take coverage off the table and allow folks to have "private coverage" through the city. Yay Libertarianism!

So this dude decides not to pay the $75 and gets pissed when his gaming of the system results in his winning the Libertarian jackpot.

Wahhh freaking Waaaah.

The only question I have is what {ableist slur} gave the guy a home loan?

The interesting thing is this is pretty much how it used to be with fire protection.

edosan wrote:

The interesting thing is this is pretty much how it used to be with fire protection.

This is pretty much what really ticks me off about Libertarianism. All of the rules and regulations came about to solve problems different segments of society were facing. Now that we are detached from the cause of these problems, Libertarians want to go back and reset to that time when life pretty much sucked.

From the wiki edosan linked to:

In the late 19th century, the demand of central command for fire companies took place within cities because the fire companies would fight over fires or not put out an fire because the owners didn't have fire insurance.[citation needed] Insured properties had plaques with the insurance company's names affixed to their exterior called fire marks. This caused areas of a city to be badly damage by fires and caused many deaths. Cities started to form their own fire departments as a civil service to the public, forcing private fire companies to shut down, and merging their fire stations into the city's fire department.

So in other words, the city took away the individual's freedom to choose whether or not to pay for fire safety, instituted a tax on everyone, and they socialized an entire industry and destroyed private business, all for the safety of their city.

Sarcastic tone aside -- I would vote for that all over again.

Seth wrote:

So in other words, the city took away the individual's freedom to choose whether or not to pay for fire safety, instituted a tax on everyone, and they socialized an entire industry and destroyed private business, all for the safety of their city.

Sarcastic tone aside -- I would vote for that all over again.

Now we just need to privatize police protection! Tea Party ftw!!

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Funkenpants wrote:

At a minimum, there should be a mechanism in which the fire department puts out the fire, then is able to slap a lien on the house for cost of services rendered, which would be set at a far higher cost than the cost of the annual fee. This would create the necessary incentive to participate and prevent the social cost of homes being unnecessarily destroyed.

You're right. That facility should be there. I wouldn't expect the fireman on the ground to be able to make a call like that, so something of the sort should be instituted after this.

While it has potential, I'm worried about what would happen in this case. We'd be having a debate over a headline about firefighters 'extorting' home owners and putting huge liens on their houses while they are on fire. That is not something that the firefighters want to be doing, and I am certain that lawsuits would be filed before the smoke fully cleared. That said, you are absolutely right that under no circumstances should we be blaming the firefighters on the scene. They have no control over the policies here, and they are there to save lives.

What should have happened, as Seth mentioned, is that the county should have paid the city to provide expanded protection. Private protection plans are a bad idea, but in this case it was the only option.

par wrote:

Sorry Kraint, we can agree to disagree.

Fair enough. I think the difference between life and property is the important factor in my lack of outrage here. Everything else here is just insured stuff.

Seth wrote:

So in other words, the city took away the individual's freedom to choose whether or not to pay for fire safety, instituted a tax on everyone, and they socialized an entire industry and destroyed private business, all for the safety of their city.

Sarcastic tone aside -- I would vote for that all over again.

Call me crazy, but I don't think that personal safety should be a for-profit enterprise.

ruhk wrote:
Seth wrote:

So in other words, the city took away the individual's freedom to choose whether or not to pay for fire safety, instituted a tax on everyone, and they socialized an entire industry and destroyed private business, all for the safety of their city.

Sarcastic tone aside -- I would vote for that all over again.

Call me crazy, but I don't think that personal safety should be a for-profit enterprise.

That's because you're a bed-wetting socialist who hates his mother and wipes his ass with the flag.

ruhk wrote:
Seth wrote:

So in other words, the city took away the individual's freedom to choose whether or not to pay for fire safety, instituted a tax on everyone, and they socialized an entire industry and destroyed private business, all for the safety of their city.

Sarcastic tone aside -- I would vote for that all over again.

Call me crazy, but I don't think that personal safety should be a for-profit enterprise.

two things -- first, I'm no Libertarian. perhaps my sarcastic tone was impossible to tell, even when I wrote "sarcastic tone" next to it.

Second, in defense of the City -- you're couching your arguments in incorrect terms. The City of South Fulton's Fire Department is not for profit. It's run on the tax money of city residents and the cracks are covered by voluntary payments from county residents. This happened because city residents didn't want to pay the increased tax burden of protecting the county residents from fires, and neither did county residents.

LIke I said before -- this is not a situation where Crassus shows up with a fire department and offers to buy your property for pennies on the dollar or he'll watch it burn. This is the inevitable result of people refusing to pay taxes to keep their own society safe.

You know who's to blame here? It's not the fire department or even the Mayor. It's first and foremost Cranick for gambling with his house, and second every taxpayer in that city and county who refused to vote for a millage to pay for the fire department.

The urban slant is amusing. Urban fire departments are a necessity due to the close proximity of buildings. Fire protection is a public good for one reason only -- fire spreads. It is not uncommon for a fire department to be reduced to hosing down adjacent buildings while watching the target structure reduce to ash.

Hard to tell, but the area in question sounds rural. Growing up in a rural area, a fire of pretty much any magnitude was a lost property. The concept that a fire department will arrive and "save the house" was a daydream at best.

I live in California and we take our fires seriously. I guess that is one of the reasons we are in trouble in our State but at least we would have put out this fire.

Seth wrote:
ruhk wrote:
Seth wrote:

So in other words, the city took away the individual's freedom to choose whether or not to pay for fire safety, instituted a tax on everyone, and they socialized an entire industry and destroyed private business, all for the safety of their city.

Sarcastic tone aside -- I would vote for that all over again.

Call me crazy, but I don't think that personal safety should be a for-profit enterprise.

two things -- first, I'm no Libertarian. perhaps my sarcastic tone was impossible to tell, even when I wrote "sarcastic tone" next to it.

Second, in defense of the City -- you're couching your arguments in incorrect terms. The City of South Fulton's Fire Department is not for profit. It's run on the tax money of city residents and the cracks are covered by voluntary payments from county residents. This happened because city residents didn't want to pay the increased tax burden of protecting the county residents from fires, and neither did county residents.

LIke I said before -- this is not a situation where Crassus shows up with a fire department and offers to buy your property for pennies on the dollar or he'll watch it burn. This is the inevitable result of people refusing to pay taxes to keep their own society safe.

You know who's to blame here? It's not the fire department or even the Mayor. It's first and foremost Cranick for gambling with his house, and second every taxpayer in that city and county who refused to vote for a millage to pay for the fire department.

+1.

I'm pretty much Nelson Muntz on this one when it comes to Cranick and his anti tax yahoos. The only people I think anyone has a right to be upset at are the morons who wrote his homeowner's policy and his mortgage.

CheezePavilion wrote:
You can't let the guy pay the $75, or even $75 for every year missed at the time of a fire. There would be no incentive to pay the fee. If there were 1000 homes, the fire department would be counting on $75,000 coming to in to prepared for fires in a rural community. If they let people pay as they went, and there were 10 fires, they might only see $300. It doesn't work. Letting him pay is unfair to everyone else that is paying year after year when they don't have a fire.

Why not charge something in between $75/year missed and the value of the house--actuaries do this all the time, it's called a moral hazard and they figure out the numbers involved.

Like in your example, let's play amateur actuary: there are four homes paying the fee (300 divided by 75, right?). That means at least six homes without the fee will catch fire in a year--ten minus four--and that's assuming that even though the insured homes only represent .004 of the homes, every single one of them will catch fire in a year; this is County Reverse Karma, or something. That means if all those houses which catch fire but don't have insurance opt in when they do catch fire, and the city charges about $12,500 per uninsured house, they still make their $75,000 number a year.

Still doesn't work though -- not when you need that 75,000.00 in regular installment to pay for the lease on the building, pay for the salaries of the firefighters, pay for the truck maintenance, etc. if all six houses burn on the first day of the fiscal year and you scraped enough money from the previous fiscal year to cover them, then you're fine -- but what happens if those houses don't burn till late in the fiscal year, after your trucks are in disrepair and the firefighters haven't eaten in months?

It's why social services really don't work on a "pay as you go" system -- they need to be available all the time, even when you don't need them, simply so they can exist when you do. Likewise, it's not intelligent to wait to build a hospital until someone has a serious accident and offers to pay for the building -- much smarter to already have the building.

Jayhawker wrote:

This thread makes me sad. It's like a collective case of "not getting it."

I don't think so--there are a couple of assumptions you've got in here I think are up for debate.

The firefighters did nothing wrong. There is no "shaky ground." In fact, if they had fought the fire, and someone had been injured, they risked not being covered by their own insurance.

How do you know?

You can't let the guy pay the $75, or even $75 for every year missed at the time of a fire. There would be no incentive to pay the fee. If there were 1000 homes, the fire department would be counting on $75,000 coming to in to prepared for fires in a rural community. If they let people pay as they went, and there were 10 fires, they might only see $300. It doesn't work. Letting him pay is unfair to everyone else that is paying year after year when they don't have a fire.

Why not charge something in between $75/year missed and the value of the house--actuaries do this all the time, it's called a moral hazard and they figure out the numbers involved.

Like in your example, let's play amateur actuary: there are four homes paying the fee (300 divided by 75, right?). That means at least six homes without the fee will catch fire in a year--ten minus four--and that's assuming that even though the insured homes only represent .004 of the homes, every single one of them will catch fire in a year; this is County Reverse Karma, or something. That means if all those houses which catch fire but don't have insurance opt in when they do catch fire, and the city charges about $12,500 per uninsured house, they still make their $75,000 number a year.

edit: oops! forgot my own issue of moral hazards--let's say this means no one pays at all. That means with ten uninsured fires, we're talking $7,500 per uninsured fire.

And hey--it it's unfair, tack on an extra $300 per on the spot sign up fire, and then refund the fee those early adopter houses paid--now there's an incentive to sign up! If you sign up, and they have to fight fires that year by people who didn't sign up early, charge the late comers a little extra and refund the early adopters some of their fees--now your fire service not only promises they'll save your house for a much lower fee if you sign up early, it could possibly cost you nothing thanks to an end-of-year rebate!

CheezePavilion wrote:

Why not charge something in between $75/year missed and the value of the house--actuaries do this all the time, it's called a moral hazard and they figure out the numbers involved.

Like in your example, let's play amateur actuary: there are four homes paying the fee (300 divided by 75, right?). That means at least six homes without the fee will catch fire in a year--ten minus four--and that's assuming that even though the insured homes only represent .004 of the homes, every single one of them will catch fire in a year; this is County Reverse Karma, or something. That means if all those houses which catch fire but don't have insurance opt in when they do catch fire, and the city charges about $12,500 per uninsured house, they still make their $75,000 number a year.

Why bother? It was neither their legal nor moral obligation to do so and it isn't the city's obligation to provide a multi-tiered system for fire protection. The dude gamed the system and lost.

edit: Moreover, the city has a fiduciary responsibility not to risk the insurance liability of their firefighters on fires they were not contractually obligated to fight. The same goes for the equipment as well. Had the firefighters had done so on their own accord, I would have had no problem subjecting them to disciplinary action.

Apparently, Mr Cranick paid the fee in the past and forgot to pay it this year. Fee-based fire service is freaking stoopid.

Seth wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

Like in your example, let's play amateur actuary: there are four homes paying the fee (300 divided by 75, right?). That means at least six homes without the fee will catch fire in a year--ten minus four--and that's assuming that even though the insured homes only represent .004 of the homes, every single one of them will catch fire in a year; this is County Reverse Karma, or something. That means if all those houses which catch fire but don't have insurance opt in when they do catch fire, and the city charges about $12,500 per uninsured house, they still make their $75,000 number a year.

Still doesn't work though -- not when you need that 75,000.00 in regular installment to pay for the lease on the building, pay for the salaries of the firefighters, pay for the truck maintenance, etc. if all six houses burn on the first day of the fiscal year and you scraped enough money from the previous fiscal year to cover them, then you're fine -- but what happens if those houses don't burn till late in the fiscal year, after your trucks are in disrepair and the firefighters haven't eaten in months?

Borrow the money until you get the program going. It'll make the service cost a little more for a while because of interest payments, but it could be done if they wanted to do it.

I don't see how they could rely on the money anyway: you can't just build a fire house/hire and train additional firefighters/get a fire truck and engine/etc. the next day when you get the 75k payment. They had to finance this in advance, or else I'd be pretty angry: my house burned down even though I paid the fee because the equipment was still in transit to the city from the seller?

Paleocon wrote:

Why bother? It was neither their legal nor moral obligation to do so and it isn't the city's obligation to provide a multi-tiered system for fire protection. The dude gamed the system and lost.

I disagree it was neither their legal or moral obligation in all cases. If the dude gamed the system, especially if he's some kind of anti-tax nut, then yeah, I can maybe see that; however, if it's someone who thinks those people are yahoos but didn't pay because they took a chance knowing it should have been only $50 to incorporate, well, I feel sympathy for that chick considering the neighbors she has to live among.

Moreover, the city has a fiduciary responsibility not to risk the insurance liability of their firefighters on fires they were not contractually obligated to fight. The same goes for the equipment as well.

Do they? I'm not sure about that.

I'm mostly waiting until Aetius shows up to explain how this was a Good Thing, or how this wouldn't have happened in an orthodox Libertarian state because [insert arcane logical peregrination here].

By the way, did Tennessee pay its federal flood insurance this year?

goman wrote:

Fee-based fire service is freaking stoopid.

I think most of us can agree on that point -- the question is, will this event cause the members of Obion County to put their money where their mouths are and pay their taxes, or will they just cop to the ever popular "glad it wasn't me" and show up to the next county board meeting with anti-taxation signs?

CheezePavilion wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Why bother? It was neither their legal nor moral obligation to do so and it isn't the city's obligation to provide a multi-tiered system for fire protection. The dude gamed the system and lost.

I disagree it was neither their legal or moral obligation in all cases. If the dude gamed the system, especially if he's some kind of anti-tax nut, then yeah, I can maybe see that; however, if it's someone who thinks those people are yahoos but didn't pay because they took a chance knowing it should have been only $50 to incorporate, well, I feel sympathy for that chick considering the neighbors she has to live among.

The fire crew is not even remotely capable of making that sort of judgment. Whatever the reason for not paying the $75 annual fee, the decision to forego fire protection was the homeowner's. The consequences for that action or inaction were clear to all parties. It's hard to see how this could be any more cut and dried.

goman wrote:

Apparently, Mr Cranick paid the fee in the past and forgot to pay it this year. Fee-based fire service is freaking stoopid.

Wow--that makes this even *worse* than private insurance: most kinds of insurance you're still covered if you miss a payment as long as you don't indicate you actually want to cancel your coverage: they have to do things like send you a notice of cancellation when you're past due and you've got ten days to rectify the situation with a payment.

The Cranicks said they also forgot to pay their fire service fee on time about three years ago. But the fire department then did not hesitate to put out a chimney fire and let them pay the fee the next day. Link

Seth wrote:
goman wrote:

Fee-based fire service is freaking stoopid.

I think most of us can agree on that point -- the question is, will this event cause the members of Obion County to put their money where their mouths are and pay their taxes, or will they just cop to the ever popular "glad it wasn't me" and show up to the next county board meeting with anti-taxation signs?

I'm betting on libertarians putting together a donation fund to reduce the damage the public embarrassment has caused theiir flawed ideology.

Paleocon wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Why bother? It was neither their legal nor moral obligation to do so and it isn't the city's obligation to provide a multi-tiered system for fire protection. The dude gamed the system and lost.

I disagree it was neither their legal or moral obligation in all cases. If the dude gamed the system, especially if he's some kind of anti-tax nut, then yeah, I can maybe see that; however, if it's someone who thinks those people are yahoos but didn't pay because they took a chance knowing it should have been only $50 to incorporate, well, I feel sympathy for that chick considering the neighbors she has to live among.

The fire crew is not even remotely capable of making that sort of judgment.

So why default to "he's a nut--he deserves this" and not "hey--that list we have of people who paid? Maybe someone screwed up when they typed it into the computer"?

Did anyone consider what would happen if it turns out they did pay, they just didn't remember and there was a clerical error?

Whatever the reason for not paying the $75 annual fee, the decision to forego fire protection was the homeowner's. The consequences for that action or inaction were clear to all parties. It's hard to see how this could be any more cut and dried.

The government should not be in the business of standing on its rights when dealing with people and when the destruction of property--especially a home--is a consequence?