Like Shouting :"Bank Failure" in a Crowded Theatre

Paul Krugman mocks Mitch McConnell for wanting to abolish municipal fire departments.

Okay he kids, he kids. But six to five, before noon today, some social philosopher will pop on Fox to argue that we should abolish municipal fire departments; that volunteers do the job just as well, and withoutnthe crime of a public pension.

Or perhaps they will tell us about Crassus, the fabulously rich triumvir in the late Roman Republic, who owned his own fire department. If your house caught fire, Crassus would bring the fire laddies. Then he'd buy up the house next door--at an attractive discount, we surmise. And then he'd put out the fire. Now that's the private sector at work.