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Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

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Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#141

Post by Nasrudith »

gtCameron wrote: post #81
tboyd47 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would private charities be any less corrupt than public ones?

Because private charities rely on someone making an affirmative choice to give them money. In theory, if they are corrupt or incompetent enough the flow of money dries up. If the government is corrupt or incompetent, people get angry at them and then ... nothing changes. The flow of money isn't stopping, in fact the most likely outcome is their budgets keep going up year after year.

That sounds the exact opposite really - one is answerable to voters and while the other is capable of acting like a MLM organization that does nothing for the nominal cause except marketting.

Look at the old institutional system - they had loads of bad PR and were killed off - there may have been cynical reasons for doing so but it was held accountable.

Then look at all of the private "reparative therapy" and other opposite of helpful private organizations still around.

Not that being able to opt out isn't a big advantage but private bad ones can stick around way longer than public ones.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#142

Post by danzig13 »

swebs wrote: post #131
kaitai wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very elegant, and encapsulates the problem with America. Well, many other countries as well, but certainly us, America. Not government -- but our conception of "ourselves". HN occasionally has articles about education and the comparison of, say, Finnish education and American education comes up. I am firmly of the opinions that Finnish education works, when it works, because it is a service that the populatio…

I think the main reason is that Finland is also a very homogeneous country. There's much less of a concern for "paying for other people's kids".

Except diverse communities in Finland do not have significant achievement gaps with non-diverse communities.

Edit: After looking into it PISA stats, this is inaccurate. Must have heard this in a news story.

Edit 2: They do seem to do better than us with diversity - http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/fin - but worse than OECD average.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#143

Post by keiferski »

cryoshon wrote: post #137
seibelj wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without the US military all of these countries would be required to fund a large military to avoid being conquered. Pax Americana has allowed Europe to shirk their responsibilities, but some people would argue its worth it to the US.

i keep seeing this canard whenever military spending arises. tell me: who would invade? germany has no ambition to conquer france. poland has a buffer to protect it from the russians. estonia is in NATO. seriously, what threat is going to suddenly gobble up europe? oh yeah, and where are the millions of US troops currently stationed in europe that would supposedly stop the threat?

Russia would absolutely invade / interfere with ex-Soviet states if they didn’t have the protection of NATO. See: Ukraine.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#144

Post by Retric »

nonbel wrote: post #140
Retric wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because everyone is like me is not enough to for voluntary payment to work. The issue is when people can not pay and get what they want they will simply not pay. If me and 10,000 people want a waste treatment plant we can individually chip in. But, in that case defecting would be so common that it's unlikely to be built. Or, we can vote to make payment mandatory and get what most people want, but nobody wants to…

> "If me and 10,000 people want a waste treatment plant we can individually chip in. But, in that case defecting would be so common that it's unlikely to be built." Ok, but my point is limited to the fact that taxes only serve a purpose when people will not voluntarily fund a project. So this agrees with me. It delusional to think taxes are something more than a government taking your money and spending it on stuff (…

The distinction I am going for is people who would donate if and only if their donation makes a difference to project completion. If you can save your 100$ and still get what you want then that’s different than your 100$ being what allows something to happen.

My 100$ is not going to cure cancer so I don’t donate to cancer research. But, if I knew it would make the difference between a cure and no cure, then I would very much donate 100$ to end cancer.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#145

Post by swebs »

danzig13 wrote: post #142
swebs wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main reason is that Finland is also a very homogeneous country. There's much less of a concern for "paying for other people's kids".

Except diverse communities in Finland do not have significant achievement gaps with non-diverse communities. Edit: After looking into it PISA stats, this is inaccurate. Must have heard this in a news story. Edit 2: They do seem to do better than us with diversity - http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/fin - but worse than OECD average.

That seems like an odd tangent rather than a rebuttal, but it would still be interesting to see such data.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#146

Post by notfromhere »

patricius wrote: post #111
astura wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ The military spends on R&D where it makes zero business sense for a for-profit company to spend. Private companies must be profitable.

Still, the question remains: Can we say a priori that the funds for R&D military spending wouldn't have been spent better by the private sector?

private sector doesnt do basic research and has a short view of things because of the drive towards profitability.

gov't-funded R&D is why we have nice things. everyone strategically forgets that silicon valley exists because of bottomless cold war spending, so silicon valley's obsession with the superiority of the private sector is ever ironic

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#147

Post by jermaustin1 »

robertsd247 wrote: post #15
sakarisson wrote: post #3

Accenture. Why am I not surprised?

I'm not. If you want to spend millions and get no deliverables..Accenture is your answer. If you want projects late and over budget...Accenture is your answer. If you want to quickly build your resume with performing little work...Accenture is your answer.

I've worked with Accenture at various companies over the years, they have always had pretty decent teams, now the amount of overhead provided with a contract (delivery lead, delivery manager, client manager) is kind of overkill, but the developers we've brought on from them have been pretty good, but sticklers for scope and SOWs, even though we were paying hourly and not fixed.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#148

Post by danzig13 »

j_m_b wrote: post #8

“There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can…

Having worked as an actual Fed, I think there is a bit more complication to this.

I know that I and the people around me worked hard to do a good job on our project. I would hire any of those people. I also saw a great deal of the government is run by MVPs built by Feds on their own initiative.

On the other hand, the projects (including ours) I saw to replace those MVPs were largely staffed by incompetent or unfocused contractors, and I believe that is where a huge amount of waste comes in.

These contractors are once removed from even government and the waste results from this Milton Friedman push for privatization of government functions to organizations just trying to log billable hours.

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#149

Post by conanbatt »

gmadsen wrote: post #108
conanbatt wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of gifts, and thus their aggregate, are worth less than their cost to the receiver. This is because if the receiver can afford it and thought it was good, he would already have it. Because he doesn't, getting it as a gift is worse than getting money. Alternative economic interpretation: if you gave someone the choice between item X and money worth X, the gift is good only if the recipient would choose it…

I think you are missing the sentimental aspect of gift giving. It is not purely price/utility value. Emotions attached to gift giving have value for both the giver and the receiver.

I feel pretty good giving money away as well!

Re: Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

#150

Post by nonbel »

Retric wrote: post #144
nonbel wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If me and 10,000 people want a waste treatment plant we can individually chip in. But, in that case defecting would be so common that it's unlikely to be built." Ok, but my point is limited to the fact that taxes only serve a purpose when people will not voluntarily fund a project. So this agrees with me. It delusional to think taxes are something more than a government taking your money and spending it on stuff (…

The distinction I am going for is people who would donate if and only if their donation makes a difference to project completion. If you can save your 100$ and still get what you want then that’s different than your 100$ being what allows something to happen. My 100$ is not going to cure cancer so I don’t donate to cancer research. But, if I knew it would make the difference between a cure and no cure, then I would v…

>"The distinction I am going for is people who would donate if and only if their donation makes a difference to project completion. If you can save your 100$ and still get what you want then that’s different than your 100$ being what allows something to happen."

So you claim people won't voluntarily fund a project like a wastewater treatment plant since it doesn't make them feel rewarded or some other mental thing. Fine, doesn't matter why they won't do it. My point is that's the only time taxes are required to get a project done.

>"My 100$ is not going to cure cancer so I don’t donate to cancer research. But, if I knew it would make the difference between a cure and no cure, then I would very much donate 100$ to end cancer."

Even the NIH admits medical researchers waste 90% of the funds they pass out (I would put it much higher), so yea there really is no reason to give them any more money: https://nihrecord.nih.gov/newsletters/2016/07_01_2016/story3...

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