5 ms·

I do not believe this type of public theft is due to incompetence, I believe it is corruption and grift

by jdross 4y ago

dekken_ 4y ago
hey now, let's not give them too much credit, it's probably a bit of both
duxup 4y ago
Incompetence and bureaucracy seem more likely.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  Por que no los dos. All the waste of money was done above the table and according to official government process. On one hand it's just a bunch of people who DGAF about the big picture doing their jobs and nothing more. On the other hand it walks, floats and quacks like the graft duck.
  - duxup 4y ago
    Incompetence looks like graft too... doesn't make it graft.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      Where does the line get drawn? This looks a lot like the "I'm gonna pay you $100 to F-off" scene from Trailer Park Boys where the money is being given to parties who would usually whine if there wasn't something "in it for them" (the unions, the NIMBYs, the politicians, etc.) Surely the fact pattern doesn't meat the legal definition of graft but if the entity doing the paying out wasn't the government a negligence tort would probably fly so it kind of begs the question why this fact pattern is acceptable.
ceejayoz 4y ago
It's straight out of the OSS (pre-CIA)'s "Simple Sabotage Field Manual". https://gist.github.com/kennwhite/467529962c184258d08f16daec83d5da https://gist.github.com/kennwhite/467529962c184258d08f16daec... > General Interference with Organizations and Production > Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision. Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on. Be worried about the propriety of any decision -- raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
- newsclues 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - awestroke 4y ago
    But it's being used by hardcore capitalists in this case? In fact, it seems to be in the republican handbook
    - lkjlk34t34 4y ago
    - mardifoufs 4y ago
      There are republicans in the san francisco administration?
- 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tlogan 4y ago
Correct — everybody knows that Mohammed Nuru [1] was not the only corrupted one. He was just the only one caught. The problem is that these kind of corruptions is so hard to catch and prove. [1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-san-francisco-public-works-director-sentenced-seven-years-federal-prison https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-san-francisco-pu...
resoluteteeth 4y ago
> I do not believe this type of public theft is due to incompetence, I believe it is corruption and grift A lot of the money is presumably going into the extremely long public comment process mentioned in the article that building any sort of public works take in the US and which usually ends up resulting in paying to have projects redesigned multiple times when anyone complains. That seems more like incompetence or a failure in the political process than corruption/grift to me. Really the only people that benefit are the planners who end up redesigning stuff multiple times (but who probably don't necessarily really want to have to do that) and the NIMBYs who are able to effectively destroy any project if they're persistent and vocal enough. The politicians or local government officials don't really benefit because their projects end up getting effectively killed. While it's tempting to assume everything is due to intentional corruption, it's actually hard to point to anyone who's really successfully pulling off a "grift" here. Actually building anything also costs more in the US than pretty much anywhere else, which could be attributed to "grift" but it's so diffuse and systemic that it also seems to fall under "incompetence" as a result of the complete lack of any process that successfully keeps the prices in check or looks at how other countries are doing things better. Also, it seems like even other countries that have more outright bribery are more successful at actually getting stuff like this built than the US, so even if corruption is a factor it might not even be the biggest problem.

I do not believe this type of public theft is due to incompetence, I believe it is corruption and grift

by jdross 4y ago

I do not believe this type of public theft is due to incompetence, I believe it is corruption and grift

dekken_ 4y ago

hey now, let's not give them too much credit, it's probably a bit of both

duxup 4y ago

Incompetence and bureaucracy seem more likely.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
Por que no los dos. All the waste of money was done above the table and according to official government process. On one hand it's just a bunch of people who DGAF about the big picture doing their jobs and nothing more. On the other hand it walks, floats and quacks like the graft duck.
- duxup 4y ago
  Incompetence looks like graft too... doesn't make it graft.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Where does the line get drawn? This looks a lot like the "I'm gonna pay you $100 to F-off" scene from Trailer Park Boys where the money is being given to parties who would usually whine if there wasn't something "in it for them" (the unions, the NIMBYs, the politicians, etc.) Surely the fact pattern doesn't meat the legal definition of graft but if the entity doing the paying out wasn't the government a negligence tort would probably fly so it kind of begs the question why this fact pattern is acceptable.

ceejayoz 4y ago

It's straight out of the OSS (pre-CIA)'s "Simple Sabotage Field Manual". https://gist.github.com/kennwhite/467529962c184258d08f16daec83d5da https://gist.github.com/kennwhite/467529962c184258d08f16daec... > General Interference with Organizations and Production > Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision. Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on. Be worried about the propriety of any decision -- raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

newsclues 4y ago
[flagged]
- awestroke 4y ago
  But it's being used by hardcore capitalists in this case? In fact, it seems to be in the republican handbook
  - lkjlk34t34 4y ago
  - mardifoufs 4y ago
    There are republicans in the san francisco administration?
4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tlogan 4y ago

Correct — everybody knows that Mohammed Nuru [1] was not the only corrupted one. He was just the only one caught. The problem is that these kind of corruptions is so hard to catch and prove. [1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-san-francisco-public-works-director-sentenced-seven-years-federal-prison https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-san-francisco-pu...

resoluteteeth 4y ago

> I do not believe this type of public theft is due to incompetence, I believe it is corruption and grift A lot of the money is presumably going into the extremely long public comment process mentioned in the article that building any sort of public works take in the US and which usually ends up resulting in paying to have projects redesigned multiple times when anyone complains. That seems more like incompetence or a failure in the political process than corruption/grift to me. Really the only people that benefit are the planners who end up redesigning stuff multiple times (but who probably don't necessarily really want to have to do that) and the NIMBYs who are able to effectively destroy any project if they're persistent and vocal enough. The politicians or local government officials don't really benefit because their projects end up getting effectively killed. While it's tempting to assume everything is due to intentional corruption, it's actually hard to point to anyone who's really successfully pulling off a "grift" here. Actually building anything also costs more in the US than pretty much anywhere else, which could be attributed to "grift" but it's so diffuse and systemic that it also seems to fall under "incompetence" as a result of the complete lack of any process that successfully keeps the prices in check or looks at how other countries are doing things better. Also, it seems like even other countries that have more outright bribery are more successful at actually getting stuff like this built than the US, so even if corruption is a factor it might not even be the biggest problem.