| When someone or a group of people own something, and they need to turn a profit for the investors, they try to maximize income and minimize expenditures. Of course, they have to build and protect a brand, thus have to be responsive to the concerns of their customers long term. |  |
 | Competition simply keeps prices down. Most examples of high prices in the private sector are the result of government restricting competition. Government is a monopoly; thus, the government does not need to worry about profit and politicians main concern is reelection. Without people having a choice, how do politicians know if something is needed? There are answers, yet no answers are better than billions of decisions by millions of people. |
| Cost Plus is certainly a business model that the government uses that some people like and others do not. It works better in some situations and worse in others. The way it is structured can turn a good model bad. Bringing this topic up is not to give my opinion on it; however, it is to make the point that cost-plus contracts are not often found in commercial contracting but are frequent in government contracting. When the cost of a project is not relevant to the income that the project will bring in, government spending is not likely going to the best use. |  The original link was missing so I found another. |
 The original link was missing so I found another. | After Katrina significantly damaged New Orleans and other cities, thousands of cars were water damaged and abandoned on the public streets. Some cities contracted out with private companies that saw worth in these cars and paid the city a certain amount to clear the vehicles and take worth out in the form of parts or scrap metal. These cities were cleared within weeks. New Orleans went another direction. After leaving these cars scattered throughout the city for over a year, the city finally paid a contractor to remove the vehicles. Yes, some cities were paid for the cars, which were removed quickly and others paid the contractors to clear the roads, which took years. |
