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I worked at a company that had to resell its software through a disabled, veteran-owned sole proprietorship so that the TSA could find budget to purchase it. Th

by seibelj 11y ago

I worked at a company that had to resell its software through a disabled, veteran-owned sole proprietorship so that the TSA could find budget to purchase it. The way it was described to me was that a portion of the budget is earmarked for these businesses, so if the primary technology purchasing budget runs out, you can still sell to the TSA if you resell through one of these businesses. Essentially, the reseller took a cut for doing nothing, and fleeced the American taxpayer for a few hundred thousand dollars. I'm sure this happens all the time.

rhizome 11y ago
To be fair, if the taxpayers are going to be victims of bureaucratic inefficiencies, I'd prefer that the beneficiaries be disabled veterans vs. that money going to Boeing or Raytheon or Palantir or whoever.
- nefitty 11y ago
  Those companies could more effectively redistribute or reinvest that wealth than an individual ever could.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    Why? The money is ultimately just going to pay some individuals - they can be upwardly mobile elites from good schools (Palantir), stodgy defense establishment types (defense contractors), or groups that traditionally get less of this kind of attention. Why not?
    - nefitty 11y ago
      Are the down votes because of the content or style of my comment? Ultimately, it's a matter of the capital those companies have invested. These companies can more efficiently allocate the extracted wealth toward research and other projects that there is demand for. I'd rather have an efficient organization running off with my tax money than an individual who might go buy a yacht with that money. A corporation has little incentive to spend money the same way an individual would.
  - AndyNemmity 11y ago
    If by redistribute the wealth, you mean lavishly pay the AE, then yes.
- Godel_unicode 11y ago
  Unfortunately, that's usually not how it works. Boeing et al will just subcontract to the veteran-owned small business and the net effect is a slight increase in price for the government, a slight increase in paperwork all around, and some profits for the small business owner for being a small business owner.
- cge 11y ago
  Keep in mind that the definition of "disabled veteran" for the purpose of government contracts, while often involving actual disabled veterans, can also be very different, as in the case of Braulio Castillo, who legally obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in disabled-veteran contracts because he once injured his ankle playing football at a military prep school, despite having never served in the military at all.
  - bsharitt 11y ago
    Having sleep apnea diagnosed while you're in the military also gets you a disability rating by the VA so you're considered a disabled veteran.
- 1123581321 11y ago
  These policies do not affect the revenue of Boeing or Palantir, who are able to arrange whatever exceptions they need to do business. Usually, minority purchasing rules come into play when a government is purchasing commodity/low-differentiated products and services.
- gaur 11y ago
  I still can't believe someone named a company Palantir. In Lord of the Rings, the palantíri fell into the wrong hands and were used to do literal, honest-to-god evil. It's like naming a company Death Star.
  - AJ007 11y ago
    Soylent belongs in the hall of shame for bad names too.
  - jlebar 11y ago
    It's like naming a company Death Star. Or like making a mission patch that's an octopus with its arms around the earth, with the tagline "nothing is beyond our reach"? It's all about audience, right? Palantir used to have t-shirts that said "save the shire" on the back -- dunno if they still make those.
  - danielvf 11y ago
    The Palantir were "good" objects in The Lord of the Rings. (As opposed to the Ring, which was inherently evil) The Palantir were used for thousands of years to protect the kingdom. Even during the time of the books, when being used by the most powerful evil bad guy, the right good guy could take back control of the Palantir "network".
- ams6110 11y ago
  Boeing, Raytheon, and Palantir are not bidding on $300K projects. That's just background noise. I can't even figure out why IBM was interested; things must be tighter there than they used to be.
luma 11y ago
It's not just the federal level, I frequently bid on work in the city of Detroit where minority-owned business requirements are built into all sorts of contracts at the state and local level. The same thing happens as a result: a single person of the correct ethnicity will bid on the contract and sub it out to you for a not-so-modest fee.
- Frondo 11y ago
  I wanted to make a comment on your "person of the correct ethnicity" remark. These requirements, sometimes they're mandatory and are called set-asides, sometimes they're not mandatory and are called aspirational targets, or they might have any number of other names. They all serve a worthwhile purpose; they help combat years or decades of preferential treatment by procurement officers to pick people of "the correct ethnicity". Like, by now it's been pretty well-established that people tend to hire people that look like them, i.e. one of the factors that contributes into the disproportionate representation of various groups in the tech industry we often talk about. Same thing has been happening in purchasing for a long, long time, and what you end up with is a situation where minority-owned firms will have been largely excluded from government contracting. When this happens for very long, it becomes self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating; there's no institutional knowledge in ethnic community A that passes from one generation to the next about large-scale project bidding or management, and you end up with this sort of disproportionate representation and the ensuing economic effects. The set-aside or aspirational target is at least a start at countering that. Like everything, it gets abused by the people with the power and the money (which is where you get the minority contractor who acts as a pass-through to give the real work to the majority-owned firm; that minority contractor isn't building any business of their own, certainly nothing they could pass onto their kids or whatever), but it's better than what we had before, which was a system that perpetuated an even more unfair system for a lot of people.
  - trentmb 11y ago
    A capitalist is a capitalist, regardless of minority status- they're still agents of exploitation. EDIT: #yolo
  - deleted 11y ago
tantalor 11y ago
Isn't this basically fraud? Did you not report it?

by seibelj 11y ago

rhizome 11y ago

To be fair, if the taxpayers are going to be victims of bureaucratic inefficiencies, I'd prefer that the beneficiaries be disabled veterans vs. that money going to Boeing or Raytheon or Palantir or whoever.

nefitty 11y ago
Those companies could more effectively redistribute or reinvest that wealth than an individual ever could.
- superuser2 11y ago
  Why? The money is ultimately just going to pay some individuals - they can be upwardly mobile elites from good schools (Palantir), stodgy defense establishment types (defense contractors), or groups that traditionally get less of this kind of attention. Why not?
  - nefitty 11y ago
    Are the down votes because of the content or style of my comment? Ultimately, it's a matter of the capital those companies have invested. These companies can more efficiently allocate the extracted wealth toward research and other projects that there is demand for. I'd rather have an efficient organization running off with my tax money than an individual who might go buy a yacht with that money. A corporation has little incentive to spend money the same way an individual would.
- AndyNemmity 11y ago
  If by redistribute the wealth, you mean lavishly pay the AE, then yes.
Godel_unicode 11y ago
Unfortunately, that's usually not how it works. Boeing et al will just subcontract to the veteran-owned small business and the net effect is a slight increase in price for the government, a slight increase in paperwork all around, and some profits for the small business owner for being a small business owner.
cge 11y ago
Keep in mind that the definition of "disabled veteran" for the purpose of government contracts, while often involving actual disabled veterans, can also be very different, as in the case of Braulio Castillo, who legally obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in disabled-veteran contracts because he once injured his ankle playing football at a military prep school, despite having never served in the military at all.
- bsharitt 11y ago
  Having sleep apnea diagnosed while you're in the military also gets you a disability rating by the VA so you're considered a disabled veteran.
1123581321 11y ago
These policies do not affect the revenue of Boeing or Palantir, who are able to arrange whatever exceptions they need to do business. Usually, minority purchasing rules come into play when a government is purchasing commodity/low-differentiated products and services.
gaur 11y ago
I still can't believe someone named a company Palantir. In Lord of the Rings, the palantíri fell into the wrong hands and were used to do literal, honest-to-god evil. It's like naming a company Death Star.
- AJ007 11y ago
  Soylent belongs in the hall of shame for bad names too.
- jlebar 11y ago
  It's like naming a company Death Star. Or like making a mission patch that's an octopus with its arms around the earth, with the tagline "nothing is beyond our reach"? It's all about audience, right? Palantir used to have t-shirts that said "save the shire" on the back -- dunno if they still make those.
- danielvf 11y ago
  The Palantir were "good" objects in The Lord of the Rings. (As opposed to the Ring, which was inherently evil) The Palantir were used for thousands of years to protect the kingdom. Even during the time of the books, when being used by the most powerful evil bad guy, the right good guy could take back control of the Palantir "network".
ams6110 11y ago
Boeing, Raytheon, and Palantir are not bidding on $300K projects. That's just background noise. I can't even figure out why IBM was interested; things must be tighter there than they used to be.

luma 11y ago

It's not just the federal level, I frequently bid on work in the city of Detroit where minority-owned business requirements are built into all sorts of contracts at the state and local level. The same thing happens as a result: a single person of the correct ethnicity will bid on the contract and sub it out to you for a not-so-modest fee.

Frondo 11y ago
I wanted to make a comment on your "person of the correct ethnicity" remark. These requirements, sometimes they're mandatory and are called set-asides, sometimes they're not mandatory and are called aspirational targets, or they might have any number of other names. They all serve a worthwhile purpose; they help combat years or decades of preferential treatment by procurement officers to pick people of "the correct ethnicity". Like, by now it's been pretty well-established that people tend to hire people that look like them, i.e. one of the factors that contributes into the disproportionate representation of various groups in the tech industry we often talk about. Same thing has been happening in purchasing for a long, long time, and what you end up with is a situation where minority-owned firms will have been largely excluded from government contracting. When this happens for very long, it becomes self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating; there's no institutional knowledge in ethnic community A that passes from one generation to the next about large-scale project bidding or management, and you end up with this sort of disproportionate representation and the ensuing economic effects. The set-aside or aspirational target is at least a start at countering that. Like everything, it gets abused by the people with the power and the money (which is where you get the minority contractor who acts as a pass-through to give the real work to the majority-owned firm; that minority contractor isn't building any business of their own, certainly nothing they could pass onto their kids or whatever), but it's better than what we had before, which was a system that perpetuated an even more unfair system for a lot of people.
- trentmb 11y ago
  A capitalist is a capitalist, regardless of minority status- they're still agents of exploitation. EDIT: #yolo
- deleted 11y ago

tantalor 11y ago

Isn't this basically fraud? Did you not report it?