Outrageous Spending: Feds Pay Millions for Lobster Tail, Booze, Toys in End of Year Spending Binge

He meant Taco Bell is going to pay for it. Taco Bell, America's favorite "Mexican-inspired" restaurant. It's going to be built from stale chalupa shells and refried beans, tougher than any concrete

That incentivises inflated budgets. That incentivises salami style skimming/theft. It would be indistinguishable from "grease".

Be careful what you wish for. I worked as a contractor for a while. One f acility had a dearth of outlets which was odd for a facility where we expec ted to use a lot of desktop computers. Turns out the guy in charge of the construction was a govie who was given a bonus for saving money on the cons truction costs. So they had to spend a lot more money to add electrical fa cilities than the money saved not putting them in during construction.

Rick C.

Sounds good to me.

Bongress sets budgets.

Theft is illegal; prosecute theves.

Efficiency is grease?

My employees understand that annual bonuses and IRA contributions are a function of our profits, so they care about efficiency. Government employees and unions are more incentivized to inefficiency.

Government should outsource more to for-profit contractors.

Partially. You know how any big company works: internal competition for finite resources, plus big budget implies importance. If you inflate your budget by 10% and only get 90% of what you ask for, you're still happy :)

Mensch ist mensch.

Indeed. /Iff/ you can prove it within the available resources. Competent thieves escape prosecution.

The combined effects of the above real-world behaviour means yes. I wish we lived in Utopia.

Over here that has proved pretty disastrous.

The for-profit contractors all underbid because they know how difficult it is to justify picking an "expensive" contractor.

When they've skimmed something or other, they "find" they can't make money. At that point they either go bust (a couple of major examples in the past year, another one waiting to be decided this week), or simply hand back the contract (I can think of two major examples offhand).

Basically corporations run rings around politicians in this area.

The mean age of the civil servants in the department of Brexit is, wait for it, 29. And the head is just about to retire. Guess how well the fantasy Brexit negotiations haven't gone.

And we expect them to negotiate new trade treaties, doh.

seems there are less expensive ways to do nothing

You wouldn't, perchance, be... a for-profit contractor?

The first government post the new USA filled was Postmaster General. That's because there were for-profit entities doing a 'mail' system, and it obviously wasn't working. Perhaps a study of history would be in order.

Or, identify a nation that relies on private mail. A successful happy nation.

Read about 'cobra effect' for a hint.

Are you kidding ?

No I don't suppose you are huh. Your tax dollars at work.

?"My employees understand that annual bonuses and IRA contributions are a function of our profits, so they care about efficiency."

Got a spot for a guy who knows alot but can't call himself an engineer ? I would love to work for a well run company. I gave up trying. I suppose you are in bumfuct Antarctica somewhere huh...

Worse, we're in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the world. The climate is similar to Antarctica.

Email me; sometimes we need some help.