Is inefficiency inefficiency when it's done on purpose? That's what the article misses. The salaries of workers might not be higher than in other countries, but

Is inefficiency inefficiency when it's done on purpose? That's what the article misses. The salaries of workers might not be higher than in other countries, but I bet what we pay contractors vs. what they produce is beyond astronomical. It certainly is when government contracts out software. With modern computing, I don't see why we don't keep track of costs down to the penny. A new hammer is bought to continue construction? The receipt is scanned and everything is tracked. You don't scan it, you don't get reimbursed. All actual costs are known and the profit margin can be calculated from there. It might not help that much until more data is collected and future projects can be estimated better using that data, but it sure as hell beats the current model of guessing the lowest estimate to get the contract, getting the contract, and then spending 10-1000x the estimate.