The answer here is probably yes as well, even though private-sector firms would say no on both points.

Private-sector firms are bound to be too expensive, say others.

I don't think we want private-sector firms running our schools or prisons, for example, and certainly not police departments.

In the US these have always been private-sector firms, but subject to regulation.

Artifacts were acquired from individual collectors, private-sector firms and public agencies.

During much of its history, Michigan Sugar was a publicly traded, private-sector firm.

While private-sector firms have been creating jobs, government agencies at all levels have been making layoffs.

Regulatory risk - A risk faced by private-sector firms that regulatory changes will hurt their business.

In the past, regional policy has largely depended on attracting private-sector firms into areas of high unemployment through a range of subsidies.

The report mixed good news with bad - private-sector firms created 159,000 new jobs in October, but the unemployment rate remains persistently high, at 9.6 percent.

Influencing procurement practice within a private-sector firm is not straightforward for governments, meaning that the companies themselves often have to be self-motivated to embrace sustainability.

So have private-sector firms, including an oil company that envisioned using Phantom Sentinels to patrol its 5,000 miles of oil pipelines.

For example, when private-sector firms will pay county security officers $7 an hour, instead of public agencies paying them $17 an hour, what will be the quality of those officers?

What is particularly troubling about Fannie Mae is the extent to which private-sector firms harmed by Fannie Mae's taxpayer-subsidized growth are afraid of publicly challenging it.

COSTS BY CUSTOMER Although the details are kept private, it is well known that many private-sector firms set rates via contracts with selected customers.

A Conservative government, if you believe their manifesto, ought not even to be considering putting money into dying private-sector firms, but Huerter employ a lot of people, many of whom voted for this government.

The reemployment of retired bureaucrats as advisers to these corporations as well as to many private-sector firms was rather common, especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s, under the title amakudari (descent from heaven).

In 1976, a Treasury study done in conjunction with a private-sector firm found that the Eisenhower dollar had a near-100 percent attrition rate, that is, almost always, a coin was used in only one transaction, and then stopped circulating.

In such a system, the organizational structure of the firm remains similar to a private-sector firm; non-financial costs are externalized because profitability is the criterion for production, so that the majority of the economy remains essentially capitalist despite the formal title of "public ownership".

Austerity measures: On Feb. 27 the President announced that ministers and civil servants would have to pay up to 40 per cent of their salaries into a fund to pay off the foreign debt, while private-sector firms would have to pay a "solidarity tax".