patrick.net

Riiiiiight. Are you saying people are more productive when they have nothing to gain by being on time and on budget? They are more efficient when they have no skin in the game? They are more motivated regardless if there is a financial gain or loss? They are more concerned when they have no vested interest? They are more effective when cost over-runs don't matter? They are more concerned when they have no competition?

Sounds like obama talking. One who never created a job nor started as much as a lemonade stand. You didn't build that, government did, and at a better price than you could.

If its broke, don't worry, government can make it worse.

I'm not saying anything, I'm just passing on the results of the study I found. I'm not posting with any prejudice here either, the numbers are the numbers, and frankly were surprising to me as well. I suppose these will be vetted by further studies but its good to see economists and academics looking into the hard facts & results of policy issues like these, they've been carried by on sentiment far enough and almost to the cliff.

The country needs to move ahead with reality in mind and more and more the country is actually looking with cold eyes at what really happens when the policies of the right and seeing them for what they are, empty promises based on personal feelings and designed to enrich those who push them. If you have any intellectual firepower to add to the topic I'd love to hear it, but all I see in your post above is your usual mocking tone with nada behind it. You make no points, just repeat the talking points. But just because you believe something doesn't make it true, Abe. Just because it sounds like something you want to hear doesn't make it right.

But if you're asking if the public sector is actually less wasteful than the public sector, then well it apparently seems so, Yes in some cases. We already know that management of Medicare is more efficient than the private system by a factor of about 5, so its likely this is the same in other areas as well. Or maybe the private sector has become more graft oriented without the proper oversight. Who would've guessed, who knows? Read the fucking study, its there above you. Just don't come back at this with an empty emotional response to an issue that pretty needs cold hard facts at this point.

As for job creation you can look it up and find as many sources as you want. Here's the first one that comes up for me on a google search: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_created_during_U.S._presidential_terms though I'm sure you can find more academic and thorough reads easily. The interesting part is the difference between the end of bush's term and the first years of Obama's. But anyway, there's no need to personalize this into a war between personalities. We need to move beyond that, beyond the caveman thinking. You need to come out of your little cave and look at the light and see whats really there instead of cowering under your dirt when the clouds roll overhead, regardless of whoever's face you may think you see in them.

As soon as somebody contracts with the government, they are no longer "private enterprise", they are part of a system of favors, political correctness and graft.

How many "contracts" wind up going to political supporters or "immune" politically correct assignees? There are multiple issues of secondary gain, not strict profit and loss on the merits.

Comparing what a do nothing federal worker makes compared to a potentially do something private contractor is apples and oranges. If the federal employee could or would have done the job, the contract would not have been assigned in the first place.

Contractors remove transparency and oversight.

If you are a Federal worker, everything you do is open to scrutiny. Your salary information, working hours, virtually EVERYTHING can be put under a microscope.

If you have contracted that out to a company though, it's a black box. This is precisely why there's been such a boom in contractor work, it's a gold mine for corruption and fraud. We should put the brakes on it, not FULL STEAM AHEAD!

But people don't want to be bored with FACTS and actual outcomes, they prefer to go with their prejudices. It's exactly to me, like when banks don't want to be bothered with mortgage paperwork. They shuffle the job onto a contracted company like MRS and when robosigning scandal comes out they say SEE THOSE GUYS CHEATED our hands are CLEAN!

This is an incredibly stupid argument.

The reason is that contractors with government agencies often are selected for reasons that have little to do with whether or not they can most effectively get the jobs done. Often they are selected due to political connections, bribes to govt employees, etc.

If anyone TRUELY believes that private industry is less effective than government agencies, please pm me and I'll let you know exactly how wasteful my public agency is. I'll start off with the fact that the three managers in my division that report directly to the head of my division...their jobs could poof without any discernable negative repercussions....thats $360K in salary alone. In one division. Of one department. Of one city entity.

Honestly, its a joke. Whats worse is most government employees will lie their asses off about the situation, swear they are overwhelmed with work.

Its utter...well as Uncle Joe says...malarkey.

Really?

He's a quick test.

In WW2, Korea, Vietnam most of the basic military infrastructure - Barracks, PXs, Shower Facilities - were entirely built by the armed services using servicemen. The general cracked the whip and a division would have all it's soldiers housed and equipment in garages in two weeks, tops. Engineers used prefab supplies and some enlisted men labor and had shit up and running in no time. Everything was uniform, pre-planned, and tested to be assembled by people assumed to have no better than an 8th grade education yet stand up to having a platoon of 19-year olds jumping all over it.

Whereas during the GWOT:
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-4893929.html
http://antiwar.com/blog/2009/05/20/deadly-kbr-showers-came-with-80m-bonuses/

$80M Showers. That electrocute people. Expensive, Crappy, and Behind Schedule. And full of Grade F garbage from China that's making them all sick.

Government workers make a flat salary with a fixed budget.
Private contractors operate on a cost-plus basis.

Which of the two have an incentive to go overbudget and pad costs?

I keep wondering if contracting is so all-fired better, why we don't hire mercenaries for all combat roles. It would be far more cost-effective not to have to carry their overhead during peacetime, and insurance would be the employee's problem. Atrocities? Not our problem, we had clear guidelines they didn't follow why don't you sue the company.

Keeping everyone busy can be accomplished in any number of structures but works best from an ethical base. I've read that if you were to take everything and distribute it equally that it would all be back as it was in a generation or two. The nature of things doesn't seem to change and I suspect they knew this in olden times and that's why they had the Jubilee:"This fiftieth year is sacred—it is a time of freedom and of celebration when everyone will receive back their original property, and slaves will return home to their families. "
—Leviticus 25:10 What we're experiencing with our modern economy is a messy 'jubilee' without acknowledging it.

taxee says

Leviticus 25:10 What we're experiencing with our modern economy is a messy 'jubilee' without acknowledging it.

Beautiful . . . beautiful. Years ago, this is what I used to come to Patnet for (and get). The poetry and wisdom.

Vicente says

If you are a Federal worker, everything you do is open to scrutiny. Your salary information, working hours, virtually EVERYTHING can be put under a microscope.
If you have contracted that out to a company though, it's a black box. This is precisely why there's been such a boom in contractor work, it's a gold mine for corruption and fraud.

God Bless America.

Taxpayers paid $47M to Jorge Scientific, a contractor, apparently to supply a table full of narcotics and alcohol for Security Guards to enjoy while neglecting their duties in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Jorge Scientific medical team took trips to the K-Hole.

Cellphone video recorded earlier this year at an operations center of a U.S. security contractor in Kabul, Afghanistan appears to show key personnel staggeringly drunk or high on narcotics, in what former employees say was a pattern of outrageous behavior that put American lives at risk and went undetected by U.S. military officials who are supposed to oversee such contractors.

The video, provided to ABC News by two former employees, is scheduled to be broadcast in a report this evening on "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline."

Asked if a response to an attack by terrorists would have been possible during the events seen on the video, one of the former employees, Kenny Smith, told ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross, "No, sir."

Questions posed by ABC News to the Pentagon have sparked a criminal investigation by the U.S. Army, a spokesman says.

The contractor, Virginia-based Jorge Scientific, has won almost $1 billion in U.S. government contracts.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/video-shows-drunk-stoned-us-security-contractors/story?id=17493189

Video at the link.

yeah. I think the issue at hand here isn't oversight of gov entities, but instead oversight of what basically becomes a gov "grant" process, and then the subsequent efficiencies.

With oversight agencies being stripped of funds so they are unable to regulate the money they award this leaves the private entities entirely to their own recognizance. But private business has only one main motive: profit. So if they can get it by grifting the "grant" system then that becomes a legit factor of their business. The studies above probably reflect this shift.

So what under gov effort was a service to citizens with no profit motive becomes a system whereby both the gov and the citizens becomes a resource for biggering profits for the private firm that assumed the effort, and without the oversight and regulations there's no motive to increase the results or customer satisfaction.

kentm says

Of the 35 job classifications that POGO studied, contractor billing rates were on average 83 percent higher than what the government pays federal employees. In one instance, contractor billing rates were nearly 5 times higher than the full compensation paid to federal employees performing comparable services. Contractors were more expensive in all but two of the occupations—groundskeeping and medical records technician."

as with any profession, contractors have a specialty skills which the employer lacks and/or is unwilling to employ on a full time basis. This makes sense if you require a contractor to work a few hours a month as many actually do.

on the whole your actually paying far less employing a contractor.

kentm says

We already know that management of Medicare is more efficient than the private system by a factor of about 5, so its likely this is the same in other areas as well.

and what is the alternative to Medicare when competition is in fact banned creating a monopoly.

AT&T was also efficient when it was the only dominant player in their industry without competition. Dont we have better choices with less cost to consumers since we broke the govt backed monopoly?

Vicente says

Contractors remove transparency and oversight.

If you are a Federal worker, everything you do is open to scrutiny. Your salary information, working hours, virtually EVERYTHING can be put under a microscope.

If you have contracted that out to a company though, it's a black box.

Pathetically naive of you as always !

Havent you read about department of defense is contracting with the likes of tech giants from Microsoft to Intel to many tech companies to combat Cyber Warfare also have full open access to anything and everything their vendors have and is reviewed by both parties. In such matters there is plenty of open collaboration.

Of course you never had any experience when a government auditor walks into your offices and..
cracks open the books and reviews everything. And of course they also have full access to your own BOD and not to mention outside corporate legal and auditors. .... You really dont live or work in the real world.. do you?

kentm says

So what under gov effort was a service to citizens with no profit motive becomes a system whereby both the gov and the citizens becomes a resource for biggering profits for the private firm that assumed the effort, and without the oversight and regulations there's no motive to increase the results or customer satisfaction.

Translation...

Ban all Contractors... so no one can say..."I did that" and everyone can be forced to say... the "Government did that"...

You Libs are really something!

thomaswong.1986 says

as with any profession, contractors have a specialty skills which the employer lacks and/or is unwilling to employ on a full time basis. This makes sense if you require a contractor to work a few hours a month as many actually do.

on the whole your actually paying far less employing a contractor.

Well thomas, apparently not. Read the study.

As for your other notes, what evs. I always get the feeling from your posts that you're looking up from your comic book just long enough to make the post.

kentm says

OGO’s study found that using contractors to perform services may actually increase, rather than decrease costs to taxpayers.

Of course! Most people don't realize the scams that are pulled on Government contracts are far less internal to the agency being outsourced than they realize.
Like look at the Post Office for instance. People think outsourcing the Post office would save money. When in fact the biggest hemorrhage the post office is facing right now is from the contractors they currently use.

The Post office has private Gas companies come around and put gas in their vehicles. There isn't any meter oversight on the Government side. A gas truck pulls up in the lot, the guy goes around from truck to truck and tops off gas tanks. When he's through, the driver then gives a bill for what ever amount he said he pumped. Then there's other games these gas contractors play, by the volume of the gas based on the weather, pressure, and temperature. Depending on these factors they may bill more gallons accordingly but they never bill less when the atmospheric conditions are in their favor.

This is just one abuse that I have good first hand knowledge on.
The FBI is actually in communication regarding an investigation, with a coworker that wrote software for one such company.

The study was probably written by a union thugs who hates it when government contracts out things to non-union workers, since that means less campaign funds for Democrats.

CaptainShuddup says

When in fact the biggest hemorrhage the post office is facing right now is from the contractors they currently use.

I suspect that the biggest hemorrhage at the post office bloated union pay and benefits to keep extra people around for the extra work involved in delivering mail more days than they need.

Man could you imagine a $20 letter?

The post office is one of those things that people that only get Bills in the mail, really wish wasn't around. But when they see a letter or a package they had been anticipating, who in the hell says...
"Those God Damn Post Office people, why don't they stop leaving this crap at my door!"

dodgerfanjohn says

If anyone TRUELY believes that private industry is less effective than government agencies, please pm me and I'll let you know exactly how wasteful my public agency is. I'll start off with the fact that the three managers in my division that report directly to the head of my division...their jobs could poof without any discernable negative repercussions....thats $360K in salary alone. In one division. Of one department. Of one city entity.

Working in private industry I have seen plenty of dead weight employees kept around for various reasons. This is not a problem exclusive to government workers.

Anyway, anecdotal evidence is not a very convincing data set, and cannot be extrapolated to assume that all government divisions have an average of $360K of useless employees.

Private industry is verifiably less effective at some things, but that is not to say that they are less effective at everything.

zzyzzx says

CaptainShuddup says

When in fact the biggest hemorrhage the post office is facing right now is from the contractors they currently use.

I suspect that the biggest hemorrhage at the post office bloated union pay and benefits to keep extra people around for the extra work involved in delivering mail more days than they need.

The biggest hemorrage to the post office is probably their mandate to maintain service to, primarily rural, areas that operate at a loss.