Earlier quoted context omitted.
workers are allowed to bargain against the government, as in “i will not take the job at the pay you are offering.” both private companies and workers should not be allowed to band together to deny the government all contracts until they get the one they want.
Your stance seems to be at odds with the freedom of association protected by the US Constitution.
Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
441–450 of 684 posts
Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
#442It probably did not need DOGE to find out that these contracts where overpriced ;-)
Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's ways to do that that aren't the mindless slash and burn that's happening right now. If it were done thoughtfully I'm sure there's places that some fat could be trimmed. (And if you're looking for places to do that look at the Pentagon who hasn't passed an audit in living memory...) Would it be worth the extra hurdles required to actually catch that waste/fraud though? My bet is on probably not, it's like the…
i think we are approximately 30T beyond "slow and thoughtful approach to cutting". if you want your program to be considered carefully, pass it with the necessary tax increases to fund it. don't just punt the tax receipts problem to the next guy. of course, if Trump is doing this all so he can pass his tax cuts as seems almost certain, he is no better. but frankly yes, the US needs deep cuts and concordant tax receip…
The debt boogey man is exactly that a nearly imaginary number, most US debt is held by Americans or US companies in the end too.
Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
#444Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
Underfunding and breaking of, for example, unemployment benefits systems causes real harm, real loss of medication, real loss of house, etc. But that won't make the news in any meaningful way, and the destitute will often be too busy to make loud noises. And the populous at large will sigh and shake their head and say "what a shame", but the loss can be *enormous*.
> Underfunding and breaking of, for example, unemployment benefits systems causes real harm, real loss of medication, real loss of house, etc. I thought we were talking about firing IT consultants? Let me know when that happens. > But that won't make the news I think that would make the news immediately. The media is very interested in DOGE and its shortcomings.
I read this whole thread as being about the broader 'cutting' trend,
OOP: when discussing the overall trend of cutting programs in other fields where the majority doesn't have that expertise, the conclusion is the opposite.
Parent: Rash moves like this are things politicians and corporate ladder climbers alike love to do, but then they run far away from the consequences.
Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
GS pay scales can support senior devs just fine. Maybe not the $500k Googlers, but normal ones.
What "grade" would a senior dev be at? Pay scale for the DC area: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
I don’t think it’s the money, I think it’s the mindset. There’s more project managers than actual hands on engineers.
Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Cutting it all at once with no other plan can have disastrous consequences. I think this part is overestimated. It will get fixed.
Breaking critical systems like SNAP, Medicare/Medicaid, weather forecasting and many many many other systems that people literally depend on for their being alive *kills* people. Programmers that work on critical systems are actively trained to take into consideration every contingency to not increase the death rate of their systems, to the best of their abilities. Aggressive, comprehensive and non-robust axing of sy…
Computer problems are fixable, and they are secondary, and there are many people and services who can be hired to fix them.
Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
#448Earlier 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.
We sure could.
Will we?
Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
#449Although I think neither that or waste is the reason for termination.
Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
Haven't you seen the documentary Inside Job covering the 2008 financial crisis? "Burning it all down and starting over" is a very immature and myopic perspective and cannot be taken seriously as a workable solution. The solution is to implement regulation that, very broadly here, enacts mechanisms to make private gain for public loss something incredibly difficult to do. There need to be checks against people in posi…
> cannot be taken seriously as a workable solution ... in your opinion. More regulation will just lead to more and more ineffectual bureaucracy. "More regulation" as an answer is why nothing gets built in California. "More regulation" is why the Vogtle Unit 4 in Georgia took 20 years to permit and complete, whereas the same can be done in under 5 years in China. "More regulation" is why it takes 10 years and $3 billi…
China has been building nuclear successfully and worked out the kinks. The US basically paused all production and was trying to start over. You can't seriously blame it all on bureaucracy, when a lot of what was lost is institutional knowledge. Kind of like how your "burn it all down" approach would work for academia.
Despite how things could be structured better, in medicine and science we are making progress. Maybe we could do better, but I certainly think we could be doing much worse.