Firefighters watch as home burns to the ground

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It's only really insensntive if they started toasting marshmallows.

 

... and clutch a cool beer.

Point is, I don't get this attitude: 'Gee, this is how the rules are, and everything went according to procedures, nothing to think about, can we move on now?' coupled with an inability or unwillingness to see that the rules are actually quite crappy and the entire process, rules notwithstanding, is just perverse.

 

Do Americans all live in wooden houses or something? It sounds like fire spreads far too easily over there!

 

Wooden houses? Ever since they moved out of caves, yes. Flag-waving Orthodoxly Objecting Lumpenproletariat Republicans (FOOL-R's), that is.

 

So which is it? If you're poor, and cannot afford to pay the fee, then how would making the fee mandatory really help? If you cannot afford to pay it, what are you going to do, fine them? (Thinking that maybe they have the money to pay that fee instead?

 

A sensible solution would to have levels for income, so that really low income people pay a lower or no fee - or to finance it out of the general budget anyway - after all, providing emergency response services is generally understood to be a function of government for the good of the people.

 

Then again, it's not like the fee was large - $75 annually. Even a relatively poor family should be able to afford that. It's $6.25 per month. That's less than an hour's worth of work, even if you make minimum wage (which is currently $7.55).

 

Then, why not make it mandatory? If it's not much, what's the big deal?

 

That's exactly my point. At $75, everyone should be able to afford it. First of all, if you own a home to begin with, you cannot be that poor. Chances are you aren't making minimum wage - you have to pay property taxes, keep the heat on, etc. - and all the other costs associated with owning a home. It's inconceivable that you wouldn't have an extra $75 a year.

 

It's just basic government. Once upon a time that was understood by everyone and really taken for granted. Now, no one in this country knows what government is supposed to do any longer, at least regarding basic services.

 

that system could never work, if they could just pay on the spot then noone would pay their anual fee, they'd just wait to see if their property caught fire and then pay.

 

I would agree if they lived within the service area, but they don't, hence the reason it is optional. As Ragusa suggests, having to pay for the service, whether they use it or not, is sort of like protection money.

 

would $75 even cover a firefighters daily wage?

the reason these people have to pay is because they dont live inside the city, the city is offering them a limited service are a reasonable cost, they dont have to offer them anything

 

Shoshino, the firemen would earn the same wages sitting at the station, so the only way labor would figure in is if they have to extend some shifts to fight the fire or call in a second crew because to fight an additional (paid for in advance) fire -- assuming that the firemen are hourly and receive overtime instead of comp-time. If the firemen are salaried, labor wouldn't figure in at all.

 

thes people dont live in an area which has a fire service, they are on their own

lets argue a different side, the people of the city pay their taxes and those taxes pay for the fire service, explain to those residents why their library burnt down because the service spent hours responding to a fire miles outside the city.

 

Shoshino, I was only trying to point out that, aside from a few isolated instances that I was kind enough to concede in my previous post, wages are of relatively limited relevance where cost is concerned. The firemen are getting paid whether they fight fires or twiddle their thumbs. Nothing you just said changes this. Your next question is equally irrelevant, since this can already happen with those rural customers who pay in advance for their service. Since the city is willing to provide the service in the first place, we can reasonably surmise that they've taken proper precautions to ensure that their force will never be so overextended that they cannot still fight a local fire. Even if they have not taken such precautions, they have decided that they are willing to assume the risk. Billing a client who did not pay in advance for the entire cost of a visit, including any applicable overtime, is a far more equitable and ethical way to handle the situation -- and makes a hell of lot more sense than just telling a potential client "sorry, you're not on our list."

 

no, it would be reaonable to surmise that without the extra revenue the city would cut back the funding of the fire service.

no, that would be a form of taking advantage, obviously this extra money is necessary to the running of the service, it is like insurance - the police dont pull over an uninsured driver and allow him to take out the insurance on the spot
"oh... ill pay for the insurance if I kill someone"

 

Really? Shoshino, this is about one person, one time. One individual out of thousands will not have any appreciable effect on the funding levels of the municipal fire department. You can likewise rest assured that there will not be a stampede towards opting out of fire service when individuals who forget to pay in advance end up paying the entire damn cost of the visit. Even if the department incurs and passes along no additional manpower costs, the expense would be prohibitive enough to discourage rural citizens from tossing the dice.

What?! You recognize that avoiding a fine is not the purpose of car insurance, right? How is an uninsured motorist taking advantage of his mechanic when he pays full price for his repairs? How is an uninsured patient taking advantage of his doctor when he pays full price for his visit? How exactly is a client who pays full price for any service taking advantage of his service provider?

 

no, this is about a system which requires people to pay towards its upkeep, if one stops paying and then has the protection on the spot then all others will do the same the service would lose alot of revenue, whether you like it or not the fire service is run like a (non profit) business - you cut funding = you cut jobs, you cut service.

yeah..... how did the fine come into this? I was likening this situation to killing someone and then deciding to pay to get the insurance company to bail you out.

health service, completely different the insurance company doesnt fund the hospital.

to compare this would be the same as taking away fire service funding altogether and running it as a profit orientated business and charging everyone (exorbitant fees) for each call out.

"sorry, we're not cutting you out of your car untill you pay us $2.000"

if the service provider is profit run and charges a relevant fee then its not, when a service is reliant on a small anual fee for funding, it is.

Ever heared the story of the emperor who wanted to bath in milk? He demanded that all of the local farmers bring a full milk churn each to fill his huge bath, one of the farmers gets an idea, he thinks that as they have to climb up a ladder to pour the milk in, noone would notice if he filled his with water. So sure enough he fills his churn with water and gets in line to pour it in. after each churn was empty the emperor got ready to climb into his bath, after a moment he came back down the ladder looking furious, his bath was full of water, all of the farmers had the same idea. The farmers pleaded with the emperor that they would return with milk for his bath but it was too late, the emperor sentenced the farmers to be drowned in the bath.