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I remember glancing at that NYT article. It's hard to prove these things, but they only peripherally imply the idea of 'ghost workers'. I agree that it sounds

I remember glancing at that NYT article. It's hard to prove these things, but they only peripherally imply the idea of 'ghost workers'. I agree that it sounds like social connections are leading to small numbers of contractors, but the takeaway I saw is the lack of political will to manage contracting - these so-called 'soft' costs were on the order of 1/3 of the overall costs. I didn't pick up on the duration of taxes argument - I see your point there.

bmelton 8y ago
> It's hard to prove these things, but they only peripherally imply the idea of 'ghost workers'. https://jalopnik.com/ill-be-damned-feds-indict-new-york-city-subway-worker-1823273269 https://jalopnik.com/ill-be-damned-feds-indict-new-york-city... That doesn't prove all of the allegations from the earlier articles, for sure, but does confirm that the story wasn't made up from whole cloth. > “Lokhandwala concealed his receipt of the bribe payments by having the contractors issue checks to shell bank accounts he controlled,” the DOJ said. “In exchange for the bribes, Lokhandwala promised to steer future work to the contractors and to expedite bureaucratic paperwork for their benefit. Lokhandwala threatened to bar the contractors from future projects if they did not continue to pay him.”