Waste in terms of inflated costs is more likely a function of size more than public/private dimension. 20k $ is literally not worth lowering down to get the mon

Waste in terms of inflated costs is more likely a function of size more than public/private dimension. 20k $ is literally not worth lowering down to get the money in some industries I have witnessed. I have yet seen obvious examples of corruption, and incompetence + incentive is the prevalent explanation: the bigger a project is, the better it is for the people at the top of it obviously, and enough bureaucracy to make it a local optimum. One typical example I had is not receiving a replacement laptop when working for a bank because replacement hw is too expensive, so I could not work for essentially one month. My consulting rate would have paid for a top of the line laptop in 2 days. But those are of course two different cost centers, so it will never surface.