sometimes i have the impression, that this forum is your personal blog...

ARFeh... here's the quandry:

Marginal benefit of keeping the organization open to accept the donation: $2,600
Charity's cost to accept the donation: approximately $0 (the organization used volunteer work, though some relatively low costs may have existed)

For the charity, it's a no-brainer.  Take the damn donation.

For the government organization, however, marginal benefit is $2,600, but we also have marginal cost $X to keep the building open.
If X > $2,600, the government agency is inefficient because the cost of operation exceeds the benefit for the organization, whereas private equivalents receive a higher return on investment, as proven by the above scenario.
If, however, X < $2,600, the government agency rejected an economically efficient transaction, so either the organization is poorly managed, or regulations prevent the organization from being flexible enough to accept economically beneficial exchanges such as this.

Either way, it reflects poorly on the government organization.

it's not the government's job to hand out food!

> East wrote:

> it's not the government's job to hand out food!

If the government establishes an agency to hand out food... it's that agency's job to hand out food.  Yes, from a policymaker perspective, you may be correct... but if you were working in an agency with the task of handing out food, and you spent all day sleeping at work, responding to any requests to do your job by saying "hey, I'm a libertarian..." you'd be out of the job pretty quickly, and rightly so. 

Okay... there needs to be a sarcasm font in these forums. 

So... is the assertion that everything you say is sarcastic... sarcastic?

i think this would go another step further than the organization being self sufficent. flint had found a pallet of products that were obviously of some worth. but it was more cost effective for the driver to simply drop off the pallet and write the other places off. these orginzations are ineffective because it is in thier interest to not supply these foods properly.

> ~Killas~ wrote:

> > Einstein wrote:

> What this shows is that if your in the government and get a job giving aid to others, you do not neccessarily care about those others, nor do you have flexibility to care (Government does not want overtime even if it experienceds a net gain), where in a true charity all the people care.

I'm too tired to read everything but, I just wanted to comment on the fact that it seems as though you are implying that everybody who takes part in giving to charity is doing so truly benevolently. This is not the case.

Let's put it this way: The benefit that someone working at a charitable organization receives, including benefits to oneself, are generally more tied to the benefits they give to others than would be the case in equivalent government institutions.  Yes, people can, and often do, have selfish motivations in providing charity, even if we're talking about something as simple as feeling good about doing it.  The trick in any sort of institutional organization is to ensure that rewards people receive are tied to the work they do, encouraging said individuals to maximize desired actions.

I say kudos for giving it to charity, how very "socialist" of you (since there was a cost to you, time/petrol/call costs, and you gain nothing in return). I also am not really calling you a socialist, but I merely use this to highlight that acts of compassion can exist within a society based on greed...you complain about the government food shelters not being charitable enough, yet these are the principles that you advocate. They needed to stay back, giving something but gaining nothing personally...I am however happy with your decision to give to charity (since you want to close other private charities)

You didn't give to a government though, you gave to charity...