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... because we have to defend the ehh hmmm satellites against cough ehm ehhh other satellites. Nothing like a fourth branch of the armed forces to increase the

... because we have to defend the ehh hmmm satellites against cough ehm ehhh other satellites. Nothing like a fourth branch of the armed forces to increase the biggest military budget in the world [1] by another few dozen percent. [1] From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_... 1. US 611 bn 2. China 215 bn 3. Russia 69 bn

codyb 9y ago
Aren't those all about the same as a percentage of gdp?
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- fweespeech 9y ago
  China is ~2%. US is ~4% once off budget spending is accounted for. The actual is ~3%.
- MaulingMonkey 9y ago
  From the same table: 1. US 611 bn (3.3% of GDP) 2. China 215 bn (1.9% of GDP) 3. Russia 69 bn (5.3% of GDP)
dmix 9y ago
You mean instead of giving the much need financing to the talent that already exists in the thousands of branches that already exist in the US government they are instead pushing for creating a whole new group of administrators who will oversee the 10-20% of the staff who are the actual nerds who output the real value the agency was originally designed to do? If recent history has taught us anything is that the real issue is those nerds need extensive micro-management and predefined processes designed by committee (/s), and given how most of those nerds are hired through 3rd party contractors these days for 5x the cost, you also need thousands of people to oversee and manage the extensive contracts used to hire them and push out the ever expanding list of project requirements and legal rules to these companies. It's a perfect recipe for success. Why else would it be repeatedly used? The fact administrators see the solution to every problem is hiring MORE administrators (who often just happen to be companies staffed by their old friends from school) it's really not that surprising that western governments around the world (not just the US) are consistently failing to accomplish the most basic government projects which were previously a dime-a-dozen at comparable rates of private markets before the explosion of the size of government in the 1950/60s and it became standard practice for everything to cost 10x as much and/or result in endless delays. It's what happens when administrators take over. Aka the Iron Rule of Bureaucracy. When any failures happen instead of firing these people or holding them responsible, we turn to them to solve the problem, which always turns out to mean either hiring more people just like them or throwing billions more into the same agencies/contracts: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html According to the current mainstream narrative only greedy fiscal conservatives who hate governments are the ones who take issue with this approach. So my critiques are largely just going to be pigeonholed into a controversial political ideology rather than being a blatantly obvious issue with modern government agencies across the western world. The existing systems need to be broken down, critiqued, and lessons should be actually learned. Just throwing more people/money/power at the problem doesn't help solve it. Unless your goal is merely resource extraction and maintaining the appearance of doing something rather than actually solving problems.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  From what I have seen anecdotally, quite a lot of military jobs exist for the sole purpose of taking veterans from active duty retirement age, when they become no longer directly useful to the chain of command, out to civilian retirement age, between 60 and 70 years old. Sometimes they are employed gainfully; other times it amounts to a sinecure. So bona-fide government jobs are created for those folks, who oversee, advise, or consult for all those private-sector companies that work mostly on government defense contracts. Those are the very people who end up telling a bunch of undisciplined geeks how they should be doing their jobs. All those TPS report cover sheets go to them. They have to work really hard to ensure that nobody is ripping off the government, in exactly the same way you have to watch your waiter at the diner like a hawk, to make sure they don't give you fewer french fries than you are entitled to, or put ketchup on your hot dog, or something. They can't do the job, but they pretend like they can make someone else do the job better, mostly by staring at them without blinking, and making the "I'm watching you, buddy" hand gesture. The reality is that the geeks should be the ones hired directly into the government jobs, but they can't get them, due to hiring preference points. And also, because the pay scales are locked, and cannot compete in the open market.
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codyb 9y ago

Aren't those all about the same as a percentage of gdp?

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fweespeech 9y ago
China is ~2%. US is ~4% once off budget spending is accounted for. The actual is ~3%.
MaulingMonkey 9y ago
From the same table: 1. US 611 bn (3.3% of GDP) 2. China 215 bn (1.9% of GDP) 3. Russia 69 bn (5.3% of GDP)

dmix 9y ago

You mean instead of giving the much need financing to the talent that already exists in the thousands of branches that already exist in the US government they are instead pushing for creating a whole new group of administrators who will oversee the 10-20% of the staff who are the actual nerds who output the real value the agency was originally designed to do? If recent history has taught us anything is that the real issue is those nerds need extensive micro-management and predefined processes designed by committee (/s), and given how most of those nerds are hired through 3rd party contractors these days for 5x the cost, you also need thousands of people to oversee and manage the extensive contracts used to hire them and push out the ever expanding list of project requirements and legal rules to these companies. It's a perfect recipe for success. Why else would it be repeatedly used? The fact administrators see the solution to every problem is hiring MORE administrators (who often just happen to be companies staffed by their old friends from school) it's really not that surprising that western governments around the world (not just the US) are consistently failing to accomplish the most basic government projects which were previously a dime-a-dozen at comparable rates of private markets before the explosion of the size of government in the 1950/60s and it became standard practice for everything to cost 10x as much and/or result in endless delays. It's what happens when administrators take over. Aka the Iron Rule of Bureaucracy. When any failures happen instead of firing these people or holding them responsible, we turn to them to solve the problem, which always turns out to mean either hiring more people just like them or throwing billions more into the same agencies/contracts: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html According to the current mainstream narrative only greedy fiscal conservatives who hate governments are the ones who take issue with this approach. So my critiques are largely just going to be pigeonholed into a controversial political ideology rather than being a blatantly obvious issue with modern government agencies across the western world. The existing systems need to be broken down, critiqued, and lessons should be actually learned. Just throwing more people/money/power at the problem doesn't help solve it. Unless your goal is merely resource extraction and maintaining the appearance of doing something rather than actually solving problems.

logfromblammo 9y ago
From what I have seen anecdotally, quite a lot of military jobs exist for the sole purpose of taking veterans from active duty retirement age, when they become no longer directly useful to the chain of command, out to civilian retirement age, between 60 and 70 years old. Sometimes they are employed gainfully; other times it amounts to a sinecure. So bona-fide government jobs are created for those folks, who oversee, advise, or consult for all those private-sector companies that work mostly on government defense contracts. Those are the very people who end up telling a bunch of undisciplined geeks how they should be doing their jobs. All those TPS report cover sheets go to them. They have to work really hard to ensure that nobody is ripping off the government, in exactly the same way you have to watch your waiter at the diner like a hawk, to make sure they don't give you fewer french fries than you are entitled to, or put ketchup on your hot dog, or something. They can't do the job, but they pretend like they can make someone else do the job better, mostly by staring at them without blinking, and making the "I'm watching you, buddy" hand gesture. The reality is that the geeks should be the ones hired directly into the government jobs, but they can't get them, due to hiring preference points. And also, because the pay scales are locked, and cannot compete in the open market.

deleted 9y ago

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