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> you discover is a consistent pattern of underspending No, what you discover is a pattern of wasted spending. Then they ask for more money to actually get the

by ars 1y ago

> you discover is a consistent pattern of underspending No, what you discover is a pattern of wasted spending. Then they ask for more money to actually get the job done despite all the waste. People try to solve this by privatizing certain things, figuring that competition will help efficiency. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Maybe we need competing governments, and whichever government is more efficient gets to rule. Seriously: Add a second FAA at some test airports, see if they can do better, with the understanding that if they can't, they get shut down.

cycomanic 1y ago
> Maybe we need competing governments, and whichever government is more efficient gets to rule. Seriously: Add a second FAA at some test airports, see if they can do better, with the understanding that if they can't, they get shut down. And you would be willing to be personally responsible if people die in this experiment? It's funny how people here always complain that any money government spends is wasted, but if you look at big companies they are "wasting" money as well. Just look at the number of projects that google killed. It's simply a function of large (and small) organizations that they don't get it right all the time, it's difficult to predict the future.
- nobody9999 1y ago
  >It's funny how people here always complain that any money government spends is wasted, but if you look at big companies they are "wasting" money as well. Just look at the number of projects that google killed. It's simply a function of large (and small) organizations that they don't get it right all the time, it's difficult to predict the future. I worked at a Fortune 50 financial services company back in the 1990s and they designed, built and deployed a brand, spanking new customer service platform. They spent USD$200,000,000.00 building the system. It was ready for production when someone realized they'd spend USD$50,000,000+ per annum supporting the platform. The product roll out was scrapped, and tens of millions of dollars of equipment sat in warehouses. When trying to redeploy said equipment across the enterprise, group heads would purchase new equipment rather than using the equipment sitting in warehouses as it was "cheaper" on their budget lines to spend real money rather than put the depreciation of already purchased equipment on those budget lines. So yeah, big companies can be incredibly wasteful. Often more wasteful than government (e.g., US Medicare has ~3% overhead -- show me any private insurer that can top that) as well. It's all about the incentives. People (and consequently, organizations) respond to the incentives inherent in a situation. Sometimes those incentives promote efficient outcomes and sometimes not so much. The trick is to maximize the former and minimize the latter. Something easier said than done.

by ars 1y ago

cycomanic 1y ago

> Maybe we need competing governments, and whichever government is more efficient gets to rule. Seriously: Add a second FAA at some test airports, see if they can do better, with the understanding that if they can't, they get shut down. And you would be willing to be personally responsible if people die in this experiment? It's funny how people here always complain that any money government spends is wasted, but if you look at big companies they are "wasting" money as well. Just look at the number of projects that google killed. It's simply a function of large (and small) organizations that they don't get it right all the time, it's difficult to predict the future.

nobody9999 1y ago
>It's funny how people here always complain that any money government spends is wasted, but if you look at big companies they are "wasting" money as well. Just look at the number of projects that google killed. It's simply a function of large (and small) organizations that they don't get it right all the time, it's difficult to predict the future. I worked at a Fortune 50 financial services company back in the 1990s and they designed, built and deployed a brand, spanking new customer service platform. They spent USD$200,000,000.00 building the system. It was ready for production when someone realized they'd spend USD$50,000,000+ per annum supporting the platform. The product roll out was scrapped, and tens of millions of dollars of equipment sat in warehouses. When trying to redeploy said equipment across the enterprise, group heads would purchase new equipment rather than using the equipment sitting in warehouses as it was "cheaper" on their budget lines to spend real money rather than put the depreciation of already purchased equipment on those budget lines. So yeah, big companies can be incredibly wasteful. Often more wasteful than government (e.g., US Medicare has ~3% overhead -- show me any private insurer that can top that) as well. It's all about the incentives. People (and consequently, organizations) respond to the incentives inherent in a situation. Sometimes those incentives promote efficient outcomes and sometimes not so much. The trick is to maximize the former and minimize the latter. Something easier said than done.