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Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

reuters.com

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Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#341

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #335
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not, since most of what we sent over was existing stock. The money had already been turned into weapons of war years ago. You can't really turn a gun or rocket into a loaf of bread.

And all of the money that was used to produce new arms?

I'm not attempting to justify all military spending by the US, and have no desire to do so. I am not one to quote Smedley.

I am saying that support for Ukraine is pretty different from the kinds of behaviors that make people say "the USA shouldn't be the world police!"

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#342

Post by reaperman »

adamgordonbell wrote: post #329
leguminous wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason the US government needs to use consultants is because they can't actually pay enough to hire senior developers directly due to the constraints imposed by the GS pay scales. Often times the top levels of the pay scale aren't even available because there is some rule about how people can't be paid more than someone else. So instead they pay for consultants and all of their overhead. (Of course there…

Theoretically, there's some sort of arbitrage happening. There is some department in the government that's very unsexy and has a very real problem that could be solved by a smart finance MBA student diligently working on it. But there's no way that diligent young employee would want that job. Nor no way if he had it that anyone would take him seriously and put his changes in place. He doesn't want to work for that un…

Only place this falls apart is that Accenture / Deloitte are really not sexy. Like being a federal employee at a similar pay scale would actually be more sexy. McKinsey/BCG maybe this makes sense.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#343

Post by giantg2 »

leguminous wrote: post #279
heisenbit wrote: post #217

Consultants are misused if employed on a constant basis instead of employing enough senior staff directly. There are well known drivers on both sides that tend to promote such an unhealthy setup. What is concerning at the US government is not cutting consulting but at the same time cutting staff and on top creating a hostile environment for senior staff. This is unprecedented and is not something one would do in the…

Part of the reason the US government needs to use consultants is because they can't actually pay enough to hire senior developers directly due to the constraints imposed by the GS pay scales. Often times the top levels of the pay scale aren't even available because there is some rule about how people can't be paid more than someone else. So instead they pay for consultants and all of their overhead. (Of course there…

GS pay scales can support senior devs just fine. Maybe not the $500k Googlers, but normal ones.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#344

Post by whimsicalism »

miltonlost wrote: post #320
whimsicalism wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medicare is extremely expensive from the perspective of the government/taxpayer. That it is extremely cheap and allows people to bid up the price of care on the consumer side is part of the problem, there is no triage or disincentive from overutilization because of how little cost share there is.

Lol so yeah, you're not comparing it to private insurance which is what TAXPAYERS actually pay themselves. You're just a right-wing hack. "Medicare is BAD because it costs money and is cheaper than private insurance. Private insurance is GOOD because it costs even more money than we'd pay with Medicare!!" Your position is "medicare is too expensive" but expensive compared to what??

None of what you said is what I'm saying and you're making all sorts of presumptions about what you think I believe.

I think you struggle with civil discourse and doubt this conversation will be productive, so have a nice day.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#345

Post by Smeevy »

miltonlost wrote: post #316
stackedinserter wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to track, because it's all nice websites with generic messages like "we make life better" and pictures with obligatory diversity faces. E.g. $4.5 billion here chemonics.com. Or $3 billion here devalt.org. Where did these money go? How can we measure the ROI? USAID is a corrupt wasteful sinkhole, good riddance to it.

USAID looking for an ROI???? THat's NOT the purpose of aiding other countries. You don't need to look for a return on an investment. USAid was feeding children in places. You're looking for an ROI on saving human lives. Learn empathy.

Empathy seems to be in rare supply these days. I've made the mistake of talking to these people about the human collateral of these decisions and it's waved off like I'm bringing up an unpleasant experience in a checkout line.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#346

Post by LunaSea »

mellosouls wrote: post #283
leguminous wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason the US government needs to use consultants is because they can't actually pay enough to hire senior developers directly due to the constraints imposed by the GS pay scales. Often times the top levels of the pay scale aren't even available because there is some rule about how people can't be paid more than someone else. So instead they pay for consultants and all of their overhead. (Of course there…

They still don't generally need to use consultants. Even at the poor rates of pay in many government teams, there are still some decent technical staff who don't just chase the dollar. Bear in mind the salary standard is normal market, not FAANG/SV. Consultants are nearly always used so that managers can say "we went with BigCo, its their fault" when things go wrong. ie. they are generally a political choice rather t…

> there are still some decent technical staff who don't just chase the dollar

They are probably not chasing the job security either.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#347

Post by glitchc »

It's interesting reading conversations in this thread. Everyone wants government to hire competent individuals. Yet, when it comes to a personal choice, the very same individuals decline the lower compensation.

Everyone then wants government to pay salaries comparable to the private sector. Yet no one wants to pay extra (income, land, sales) taxes to actually support the massive increase in government spending that's needed to pay for those higher salaries.

It's classic cognitive dissonance in full effect leading to a tragedy of the commons. It goes to show that tech folks are no different from regular (DEI, MAGA, other) people.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#348

Post by r00fus »

josephg wrote: post #40
PaywallBuster wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0.61% with just a few contracts

It might be a small percentage of the pentagon’s budget. But it’s still $5.1bn of taxpayer money being reigned in here. It’s $13 per person in the country. You could do an awful lot of good with that kind of money - from space programs to science funding.

DOGE is involved - do you think anything is going back to useful programs? More likely they'll just buy more SpaceX and Tesla.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#349

Post by anon84873628 »

reaperman wrote: post #342
adamgordonbell wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically, there's some sort of arbitrage happening. There is some department in the government that's very unsexy and has a very real problem that could be solved by a smart finance MBA student diligently working on it. But there's no way that diligent young employee would want that job. Nor no way if he had it that anyone would take him seriously and put his changes in place. He doesn't want to work for that un…

Only place this falls apart is that Accenture / Deloitte are really not sexy. Like being a federal employee at a similar pay scale would actually be more sexy. McKinsey/BCG maybe this makes sense.

Well, they are a lot more appealing than government jobs at least, and have a very strong system for recruiting and hiring people right out of college.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#350

Post by r00fus »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #312
1024core wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Government _can't_ be streamlined because the right incentives are not in place, and human beings respond to incentives. For example: if a bureaucrat does not use up their budget, it is (often) reduced proportionately in the next iteration. So these people have an incentive to use up the entire budget, if they want to have any hope of getting their requests next year. As a result, they will often do wasteful spen…

Wait till you find out the exact same budget thing happens in the private sector. It is the world that needs streamlining not just government.

The capitalist world perhaps. Some countries properly invest in infrastructure and people because they're not captured by private equity.
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