[milo]

Fair enough, though its worth pointing out PFI wasn't Gordon Browns 'idea' the first tranches were started by the tories.


edit in a vaguely parallel discussion regarding iraq, stiglitz pointed out a rather amusing situation thats developed between PMCs, the us military and the DOD. The DOD awards contracts to PMCs to do work in iraq because, amongst other things it relieves political pressure (less troops) the PMCs pay more than the us military, so it increases the incentment to leave the army. Basically the DoD has set up a market with their own 'national organs' the us army/marines etc in direct competition with private military contractors. Instead of competition decreasing the cost to the customer (the DoD) the 'mark-up' put on contracts by PMCs because of the danger means costs escalate. As with anything closed to the market and controlled by the government, the us army was able to artifically keep costs down, by introducing the market to this situation costs have risen to reflect the actual danger. GG etc.