> 'Private' would mean at least that every penny wasted is out of the personal pocket of the people doing the work; in a very direct sense.
That is an odd sense of the word. It's a state that basically doesn't exist anywhere except in your back yard when working on DIY projects. Even in startups, the people doing the work only lose a fraction of a penny for every penny wasted, according to their share of ownership and liquidation preferences.
It's not a useful concept for talking about issues like infrastructure projects, because there will never be a case where the people doing the work are the ones who suffer 100% of the consequences of loss, or even close to it. I would suggest you stick to the generally understood meaning of the word when having conversations with other people, but I'm an internet commenter, not a cop, so do what pleases you.
You are making assertions that may or may not be true. That aside, the point that I am trying to argue during the whole thread is two-fold.
First I do agree with matt4077 that the difference in accountability between the CEO and the mayor is not big enough to warrant a distinction in the context of the discussion. I also agree with BjoernKW that accountability is one of the root-problems here.
Second, I do want to say that a public traded company is not a form where the CEO is personally accountable enough to call it 'prvate' in the sense of BjoernKW's comment and therefore dismissing matt4077 example as a valid example for what BjoernKW was hinting at.
I do think that others have very well understood what I was trying to convey, see for example the comments from paulddraper or cmurf.
That is an odd sense of the word. It's a state that basically doesn't exist anywhere except in your back yard when working on DIY projects. Even in startups, the people doing the work only lose a fraction of a penny for every penny wasted, according to their share of ownership and liquidation preferences.
It's not a useful concept for talking about issues like infrastructure projects, because there will never be a case where the people doing the work are the ones who suffer 100% of the consequences of loss, or even close to it. I would suggest you stick to the generally understood meaning of the word when having conversations with other people, but I'm an internet commenter, not a cop, so do what pleases you.