GIRTHQUAKE said:In reply to ProDarwin :
I was amazed when I learned how much the DoD is paying microsoft to keep supporting windows XP just for them.
I wish they would do that for me. I really don't need Windows 11 to run a word processor and print documents.
Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:Opti said:In reply to frenchyd :
Pretty much every government program is inefficient and overly expensive. The government (no matter whos in charge) is pretty bad about recognizing waste and correcting it. The more common approach is to just tax and spend more, ignore the waste, and generate more revenue or deficit spend for whatever the new hot topic is.
I think that is just a stereotype. Have you ever worked for a government agency? I have. I have also worked for two of the largest Fortune 500 companies. There are governments and government departments that are actually well run. There are departments in private corporations that are poorly run. It has more to do with the individuals running the organization.
How many Silicon Valley Companies just piss away venture capital money chasing technology that isn't possible, hire programmers that play games all day and eventually go broke without making a profit? That is waste too.
Bad management is bad management. Stereotypes are stereotypes.
The difference is if a private (or publicly traded) company waste all of their money (or VOLUNTARILY invested money) they run the risk of going out of business. We don't get to choose whether or not to "invest" in govt run programs.
z31maniac said:Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:Opti said:In reply to frenchyd :
Pretty much every government program is inefficient and overly expensive. The government (no matter whos in charge) is pretty bad about recognizing waste and correcting it. The more common approach is to just tax and spend more, ignore the waste, and generate more revenue or deficit spend for whatever the new hot topic is.
I think that is just a stereotype. Have you ever worked for a government agency? I have. I have also worked for two of the largest Fortune 500 companies. There are governments and government departments that are actually well run. There are departments in private corporations that are poorly run. It has more to do with the individuals running the organization.
How many Silicon Valley Companies just piss away venture capital money chasing technology that isn't possible, hire programmers that play games all day and eventually go broke without making a profit? That is waste too.
Bad management is bad management. Stereotypes are stereotypes.
I've worked for private companies that deal with the Department of Defense. The stereotype definitely fits there, the amount of ridiculous stuff dealing with the DOD has made me swear off working for a defense contractor again.
Remember when President Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex?
barefootcyborg5000 said:Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:Opti said:In reply to frenchyd :
Pretty much every government program is inefficient and overly expensive. The government (no matter whos in charge) is pretty bad about recognizing waste and correcting it. The more common approach is to just tax and spend more, ignore the waste, and generate more revenue or deficit spend for whatever the new hot topic is.
I think that is just a stereotype. Have you ever worked for a government agency? I have. I have also worked for two of the largest Fortune 500 companies. There are governments and government departments that are actually well run. There are departments in private corporations that are poorly run. It has more to do with the individuals running the organization.
How many Silicon Valley Companies just piss away venture capital money chasing technology that isn't possible, hire programmers that play games all day and eventually go broke without making a profit? That is waste too.
Bad management is bad management. Stereotypes are stereotypes.
The difference is if a private (or publicly traded) company waste all of their money (or VOLUNTARILY invested money) they run the risk of going out of business. We don't get to choose whether or not to "invest" in govt run programs.
You can vote.
As for private corporations, it amazes me how much they piss away. Especially in high tech.
In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
I have never worked directly for a government agency but I have worked in support of a government agency and had government agencies as my clients. Looking at it from a macro level, I already had this opinion. My experience with them only reinforced my opinion.
I have friends who consult for various government agencies in their industries. The stories overwhelming go like this. I worked with X agency. They bought me in to look at how we could accomplish X more inline with the private sector wether its costs or output or time. It is near impossible to get the various manager/vps/decision makers in a room together, and their is always confusion about who is the actual decision maker in a specific instance. They all say the organizations are very top heavy. When its over and they present their finding on cost cutting measures, increased output for the same input, or reducing lead times, the standard response is along the lines of if we cut costs theyll cut our budget or all of this will lead to us having to do more work, or we will have to reduce our management structure. Not interested.
There is an obvious difference in the mismanagement of a private company with private investors and clients/consumers and the government mismanaging tax revenue which you dont have a choice to pay. If you dont see the difference, then I cant have this conversation with you. MOST companies can fail if they are mismanaged (i wont fight you on the corporate socialism we have, and this "too big to fail bullE36 M3") but a government agency just gets more taxpayer money pumped into it and in general cant fail.
barefootcyborg5000 said:In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
They're pissing away their money. Govt is pissing away mine.
You'd be shocked. Lots is given in grants or subsidies; off the back of my hand, Scranton PA is a town where they gave millions in tax breaks to keep an old Chrysler plant open and has been at the end of a bum deal every time. Regular Cars talked about it in his VW Rabbit video recently.
ProDarwin said:z31maniac said:I've worked for private companies that deal with the Department of Defense. The stereotype definitely fits there, the amount of ridiculous stuff dealing with the DOD has made me swear off working for a defense contractor again.
Yep. I left one in 2010 and kinda swore that off. But after a series of acquisitions and mergers, I now work for a very big one again. Thankfully I am fairly distant from anything DOD related, but I can feel that burden spilling over to my work.
I worked for a division of L3 Communications, I think at the time I worked there they were the 5th-6th largest defense contractor in the country.
Opti said:In reply to frenchyd :
Pretty much every government program is inefficient and overly expensive. The government (no matter whos in charge) is pretty bad about recognizing waste and correcting it. The more common approach is to just tax and spend more, ignore the waste, and generate more revenue or deficit spend for whatever the new hot topic is.
Glass half full or 1/2 empty?
I said 1/2 lean one way the other half leans the other way. So even if a government agency's Job was to hand lollipops to children 1/2 would hate it 1/2 would love it.
That's just the way things have to be in a democracy.
What doesn't have to happen is each side vilify the other for their preference. That's only done to get their base out to vote.
If you and I sat down I'll bet we could fix the country in a short time.
The only problem would be who gets to be King and make everything happen the way we agree to?
z31maniac said:ProDarwin said:z31maniac said:I've worked for private companies that deal with the Department of Defense. The stereotype definitely fits there, the amount of ridiculous stuff dealing with the DOD has made me swear off working for a defense contractor again.
Yep. I left one in 2010 and kinda swore that off. But after a series of acquisitions and mergers, I now work for a very big one again. Thankfully I am fairly distant from anything DOD related, but I can feel that burden spilling over to my work.
I worked for a division of L3 Communications, I think at the time I worked there they were the 5th-6th largest defense contractor in the country.
Yet somehow they got a man on the moon!
Opti said:In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
I have never worked directly for a government agency but I have worked in support of a government agency and had government agencies as my clients. Looking at it from a macro level, I already had this opinion. My experience with them only reinforced my opinion.
I have friends who consult for various government agencies in their industries. The stories overwhelming go like this. I worked with X agency. They bought me in to look at how we could accomplish X more inline with the private sector wether its costs or output or time. It is near impossible to get the various manager/vps/decision makers in a room together, and their is always confusion about who is the actual decision maker in a specific instance. They all say the organizations are very top heavy. When its over and they present their finding on cost cutting measures, increased output for the same input, or reducing lead times, the standard response is along the lines of if we cut costs theyll cut our budget or all of this will lead to us having to do more work, or we will have to reduce our management structure. Not interested.
There is an obvious difference in the mismanagement of a private company with private investors and clients/consumers and the government mismanaging tax revenue which you dont have a choice to pay. If you dont see the difference, then I cant have this conversation with you. MOST companies can fail if they are mismanaged (i wont fight you on the corporate socialism we have, and this "too big to fail bullE36 M3") but a government agency just gets more taxpayer money pumped into it and in general cant fail.
It depends on who is in charge, who is responsible for the spending and who is responsible for the results. There are large government agencies where nobody is in charge, results are not defined and money is wasted. There are large corporations that are run a lot like large government agencies. Spending is buried in unreadable accounting reports and there are many stockholders who are often confused by the corporate reports. Nobody knows what is going on until the company crashes. Twitter just fired 75% of it's staff. The site is still up and running. Let's see how this one plays out.
There are smaller companies that are tightly run, sometimes by one owner, not many, that waste very little. The owner makes sure of it. There are also small cities that are run very well and are very responsive to the taxpayers. Most of these are more affluent suburbs populated by educated people who care. School districts in those areas are well run too when school districts on the other side of town are going broke and requiring State attention.
I agree that they could cut a lot at the top and the Federal level and that budgeting needs to be changed to be more reactive to what work really needs to be done. Sometimes it is just the fact that large organizations move slowly.
Some Federal Agencies are influenced by lobbyists and outside interests tied to their contractors. That is a problem. Too bad most journalists are more interested in who is sleeping with who and arguing on talking head shows instead of doing some investigation work on government and government lobbyists.
Id challenge anyone who things government agencies arent terribly inefficient to find a government agency they think performs well or better than the private sector. This has to do with costs, lead times, customer service, and the ability to get problems solved.
We should exclude the military, its a whole argument in itself, but there really isnt a good private sector alternative to base it against. You can say the government is paying to much for a battleship, but who do you have to compare it against.
There is a reason there is a stereotype about government agencies its because they are true. I just had a long fight with the local DMV because my process deviated every so slightly from the norm. It is completely legal to use the plate I wanted to use (a 96 plate for a 96 car) but its not something they do everyday, the exchange included me multiple excuses like a fake plate, the year was wrong, and the other DMV did it wrong. I had to do the research and show them the information on the DMV website to get it accomplished and faced opposition the whole time.
A local jurisdiction had a very small piece of property adjacent to a friends property. The law says something along the lines of if you maintain it, it can become yours. When my friend approached the local government about who owned it so they could buy it, they had no record of who owned it and no taxes coming in, and where informed there is a process for them to legally acquire it, and the jurisdiction would like that so the could collect property taxes on it. The left hand doesnt talk to the right hand though. So the other part of the local government they had to deal with, had a policy of no "helping." They could give you what you asked for, and tell you what you turned in was wrong but nothing else. They had to hire a lawyer who specialized in stuff like this, and it was still a huge battle against the bureaucracy. Lots of "this paperwork is incomplete" but I cant tell you what else you need. The lawyers position was the law is very clear as to what is required but the bureaucracy is very hard difficult to navigate and varys a suprising amount from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Opti said:Id challenge anyone who things government agencies arent terribly inefficient to find a government agency they think performs well or better than the private sector. This has to do with costs, lead times, customer service, and the ability to get problems solved.
Depends on what data is available for something to compare them.
Personal opinion and experience matters little, because it's also dependent on area. Like I could regale you on why I go out of my way to use USPS or my DMV being weirdly competent, but they're all my experiences and are colored from my perceptions.
Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:Opti said:In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
I have never worked directly for a government agency but I have worked in support of a government agency and had government agencies as my clients. Looking at it from a macro level, I already had this opinion. My experience with them only reinforced my opinion.
I have friends who consult for various government agencies in their industries. The stories overwhelming go like this. I worked with X agency. They bought me in to look at how we could accomplish X more inline with the private sector wether its costs or output or time. It is near impossible to get the various manager/vps/decision makers in a room together, and their is always confusion about who is the actual decision maker in a specific instance. They all say the organizations are very top heavy. When its over and they present their finding on cost cutting measures, increased output for the same input, or reducing lead times, the standard response is along the lines of if we cut costs theyll cut our budget or all of this will lead to us having to do more work, or we will have to reduce our management structure. Not interested.
There is an obvious difference in the mismanagement of a private company with private investors and clients/consumers and the government mismanaging tax revenue which you dont have a choice to pay. If you dont see the difference, then I cant have this conversation with you. MOST companies can fail if they are mismanaged (i wont fight you on the corporate socialism we have, and this "too big to fail bullE36 M3") but a government agency just gets more taxpayer money pumped into it and in general cant fail.
It depends on who is in charge, who is responsible for the spending and who is responsible for the results. There are large government agencies where nobody is in charge, results are not defined and money is wasted. There are large corporations that are run a lot like large government agencies. Spending is buried in unreadable accounting reports and there are many stockholders who are often confused by the corporate reports. Nobody knows what is going on until the company crashes. Twitter just fired 75% of it's staff. The site is still up and running. Let's see how this one plays out.
There are smaller companies that are tightly run, sometimes by one owner, not many, that waste very little. The owner makes sure of it. There are also small cities that are run very well and are very responsive to the taxpayers. Most of these are more affluent suburbs populated by educated people who care. School districts in those areas are well run too when school districts on the other side of town are going broke and requiring State attention.
I agree that they could cut a lot at the top and the Federal level and that budgeting needs to be changed to be more reactive to what work really needs to be done. Sometimes it is just the fact that large organizations move slowly.
Some Federal Agencies are influenced by lobbyists and outside interests tied to their contractors. That is a problem. Too bad most journalists are more interested in who is sleeping with who and arguing on talking head shows instead of doing some investigation work on government and government lobbyists.
I dont care about private companies being run poorly. I get to choose wether I invest in the or use their services and products. We are specifically talking about government agencies which you rarely have a choice wether you invest in them or patronize them.
It sounds like you are saying SOME wealthy areas have decent local government agencies. This sounds a lot like you agree with the stereotype that government agencies are inefficient and poorly run, but that there are exceptions to the rule. There are exceptions to every rule, I wont fight you on that, but that still leaves that the rule is poorly run and inefficient.
I also agree that the lobbyist and special interests and personal interests are a part of government agencies and a problem. Its also one of the many reasons that these government agencies are inefficient by nature. I appreciate you bolstering my argument.
Same here; I love my local post office. Same with the local DMV. My politicians respond quickly to any request even though I've never made a single donation.
I have been places where they are terrible.
In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
I wouldnt disagree with you. What you said is telling though "weirdly competent."
Its an open debate though, if you think a government agency is efficient and run properly, make your case and people can try and refute it if they disagree.
Your right that my personal experiences are but small data points on a macro level and matter little, but things like polling showing public opinion of the job ratings of major federal agencies falling precipitously over the last couple years and only like 3 agencies still having net positive job rating (old data from 2021) is a valid point. It may not be proof but its evidence.
In reply to Opti :
I have worked for groups in the US Attorney's Office who did good work for less money than a law office could. They ran a tight operation and took drug dealers and pedophiles and all kinds on nasty people off the street and protected the public. They worked for bosses in both political parties. Politics didn't matter. We had a job to do and we did it. I was proud to be associated with that group and some of them are still working there.
Seal Team 6 is also part of the Government, but I guess we are excluding the military here. Too bad. They are some of the best of us.
I have also worked for private firms where partners were snorting lots of white powder and some were even coming in drunk every day to work. They were not doing their clients any favors and I got out of those places fast.
I hate to say this, but in some cases dealing with the city hall is hard. You start by hiring a lawyer that plays golf with people who work at the city. You have to do your research to find out who has those connections. Those guys can get things done. Looking at it from the city's point of view, your friend, and the lawyer he hired that they don't know, may or may not know what they are doing. They guys at the city really don't know how to do it, and they really don't want to waste their time finding out. Since ownership of a small piece of property really isn't important to them, they really don't want to help you. But they know and trust the lawyer they play golf with. He gathers the paperwork and tell them what to sign, and they trust him because they know him and know he won't steer them wrong or do something that wastes their time or gets them in trouble. I know that is not what you want to hear, but that is how things work. I used to work for the guy who not only played golf with guys who worked for the city, but used to work in the City Attorney's Office himself. He could get things done with one phone call that other lawyers could not get done at all.
Regarding the post office, who else can deliver a letter across the country for 60¢ ?
that's cost ineffective, but it is a service, like the military.
The Post Office has to deliver in places by law that UPS and Fedex doesn't find profitable and won't deliver to. Old people in rural areas depend on the Post Office to deliver medicine that keeps them alive.
Expensive is one thing. Yeah, a military is going to cost a berkeleyton of money. Just like delivering letters to the middle of nowhere. Its a service and voters seem to want that service.
But being incredibly inefficient at that service just magnifies the above problem.
I have no idea what inefficiencies are present at the post office - my only experience is with DOD.
j_tso said:Regarding the post office, who else can deliver a letter across the country for 60¢ ?
that's cost ineffective, but it is a service, like the military.
And we're always under this assumption that things need to make money, or should be valued and rated by that metric alone.
Opti said:It sounds like you are saying SOME wealthy areas have decent local government agencies. This sounds a lot like you agree with the stereotype that government agencies are inefficient and poorly run, but that there are exceptions to the rule. There are exceptions to every rule, I wont fight you on that, but that still leaves that the rule is poorly run and inefficient.
I don't think that the areas are necessarily wealthy. There are small towns where the citizens care enough to make sure that the government is run well. They watch things. They are involved. The go to city council meetings. They know who their city councilman is.
How many people here know who their US Representative is, who their State Representative is, who their County Commissioner is, Who their City Councilman is. How many of you who complain about government actually write letters or send e-mails to their government representatives about their concerns. How many people here actually show up at city council meetings and speak in front of the council about their concerns. How many of you have actually visited the office of any of your government representatives? Go to their office in Washington and they will actually give you literature about how the Government works.
Opti said:In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
I wouldnt disagree with you. What you said is telling though "weirdly competent."
Its an open debate though, if you think a government agency is efficient and run properly, make your case and people can try and refute it if they disagree.
Your right that my personal experiences are but small data points on a macro level and matter little, but things like polling showing public opinion of the job ratings of major federal agencies falling precipitously over the last couple years and only like 3 agencies still having net positive job rating (old data from 2021) is a valid point. It may not be proof but its evidence.
Nebraska and Iowa used to be really bad states for selling broken vehicles under weak title laws- you used to be able to legally swap titles from out of state vehicles to in-state junkers destined for the crusher and vice versa, to the point where other states clamped on them to make a change. In classic Nebraskan government style, they raged like a teenager and made some of the most comprehensive Titling laws I could ever imagine and Iowa's are similar, to the degree that as long as I had matching VIN plates and proof the parts weren't stolen I could cobble together and title darn near anything so long as it has seat belts.
And I had a cashier just... tell me all of that one day, and it was all online.
Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:Opti said:It sounds like you are saying SOME wealthy areas have decent local government agencies. This sounds a lot like you agree with the stereotype that government agencies are inefficient and poorly run, but that there are exceptions to the rule. There are exceptions to every rule, I wont fight you on that, but that still leaves that the rule is poorly run and inefficient.
I don't think that the areas are necessarily wealthy. There are small towns where the citizens care enough to make sure that the government is run well. They watch things. They are involved. The go to city council meetings. They know who their city councilman is.
How many people here know who their US Representative is, who their State Representative is, who their County Commissioner is, Who their City Councilman is. How many of you who complain about government actually write letters or send e-mails to their government representatives about their concerns. How many people here actually show up at city council meetings and speak in front of the council about their concerns. How many of you have actually visited the office of any of your government representatives? Go to their office in Washington and they will actually give you literature about how the Government works.
I do. well except the go to washington part. I have to work a job 5 days a week with limited time off so that time is spent for hobbies and not arguing with dumb people
Exhaustion of common working people isn't talked about enough in my view.
Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:I don't think that the areas are necessarily wealthy. There are small towns where the citizens care enough to make sure that the government is run well. They watch things. They are involved. The go to city council meetings. They know who their city councilman is.
How many people here know who their US Representative is, who their State Representative is, who their County Commissioner is, Who their City Councilman is. How many of you who complain about government actually write letters or send e-mails to their government representatives about their concerns. How many people here actually show up at city council meetings and speak in front of the council about their concerns. How many of you have actually visited the office of any of your government representatives? Go to their office in Washington and they will actually give you literature about how the Government works.
There's also the impact of someone in a position of any power actually knowing you on a named basis. Some of the small towns I've lived in were also like this, mostly because if they weren't they probably wouldn't survive.
I'm not going to lie, I have considered running for local elected positions. I just don't know if I could stomach listening to the double speak and lies on a daily basis.
You'll need to log in to post.
