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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

#491

Post by bumby »

wat10000 wrote: post #488
bumby wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A counter point: Salary should be decent, but I’m not wholly convinced it needs to be at “market rate.” By having reasonable rates but below “market” value, you are likely creating a selection bias for people who are in it for the mission more than they are in it for the money. I think that’s a good thing. It’s like the idea that politicians should be allowed to trade stocks or else you won’t get the “best” talent. I…

You also create a selection bias for people who are bad at what they do and can’t get a better paying job.

Again, this assumes the main motivation is money. Ie if they could get a better paying job, they would. You can select for highly skilled people who also aren’t putting money as the top priority. The point I’m getting at is that pay can be a noisy proxy for skill and we should probably not assume they are tightly correlated in all domains.

One person once said the people at the NSA are much more like Marines than Silicon Valley types. They’re more interested in the mission than in getting rich. The fact that so many people look at a job as a money optimization problem says a lot about society.

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

#492

Post by bluecalm »

glitchc wrote: post #347

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…

The argument "cutters" are making is that there is enough money but also too much waste. Case in point are consulting firms discussed here: they charge you 3x rate of their employees. You could have been paying 2x to get better employees and savings at the same time.

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

#493

Post by JumpCrisscross »

wonderwonder wrote: post #365
Spooky23 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing that people so committed to constitutional principles were able to enact the largest tax increase in history without the advice and consent of congress. Impressive even for tax and spend republicans. In democracy loving areas of the British Empire, that type of arbitrary action led to revolutions.

They absolutely have the consent of Congress. Congress can stop this at any time. They elect not to. Their silence is consent in this case. You can attribute that silence to active support or cowardice but either way they can stop it and don't so they approve of it. "In democracy loving areas of the British Empire, that type of arbitrary action led to revolutions." Not sure if you have taken a look at Britain lately…

> absolutely have the consent of Congress. Congress can stop this at any time. They elect not to.

I don’t mean to be graphic, but being forced into silence (“you could have stopped me”) is absolutely not consent. The Trump administration is full of people who will need to go to jail if were to keep our republic.

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

#494

Post by fads_go »

whimsicalism wrote: post #155
sepalous wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The government could be made hugely more efficient through the use of technology. However, the civil service simply doesn't pay enough to attract the talent it needs. Therefore, we are left with little option but to pay consultants more to deliver these contracts. The total cost to the tax payer is higher; it doesn't make sense! It is reductive to say that we just need to pay more, however. The civil service…

the problem is there is literally no incentive to make sure you are hiring the right people in government. nobody is sacked if you dont make your numbers, xyz. higher salary bands are a neccessary but not sufficient condition to get competent operators.

Not sure where you get your information. Many civil servants are motivated to do what is right for their country, civil service tends to draw mission-oriented people. People who are typically willing to go above and beyond to make things work.

Think about the teachers who buy classroom supplies out of their own meager paycheck because they want them for the lesson, and 'cost-cutting' means they don't have enough resources in the school.

Think of all the people at the CDC, or at NOAH, or similar.

In any large organization, and the Fed Government is > 2m employees, so it counts, you can easily find example of people who are driven and people who coast.

And actually, people are sacked in the fed if they don't make their numbers, or they are quietly sidelined.

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

#495

Post by kmijyiyxfbklao »

FloorEgg wrote: post #410
anon84873628 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, many of the laws government has to follow are exactly about the process by which things are done. That is what helps ensure it is fair, effective, transparent, etc.

I agree, but what was fair and effective in 1970 might not be anymore, right? Do you agree that these processes need to evolve over time? And if so, what if they haven't been evolving as fast as the rest of the world and have fallen behind? What is a leader to do, when many processes no longer are in anyone's best interest other than the people who maintain them and those have learned to exploit them? The government…

Yeah, structural changes don't happen slowly and by the rules. What people don't like is what they think the new system is going to look like. But we don't know what that is going to be because Trump seems to be better at destroying than at building. It will depend on his successor(s) being good at building institutions. Or it may fail and the old system regenerates.

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

#497

Post by shusson »

dagw wrote: post #107
josephg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But it’s still $5.1bn of taxpayer money being reigned in here That's assuming that all those consultants were not providing any value and that they don't need to be replaced by hiring more staff.

What if they are providing negative value?

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

#499

Post by wonderwonder »

immibis wrote: post #458
monero-xmr wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Trump won the popular vote. Maybe make better arguments in the next election if you don't like the current leader, rather than a violent revolution to overturn a democratically elected leader

Adolf Hitler was also democratically elected.

[flagged]

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

#500

Post by lazide »

karaterobot wrote: post #428
wonderwonder wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you support it or not, for government, that's really some incredible efficiency. almost 1/3 complete in 100 days

I'll join you in getting downvoted for absolutely no reason. It's a shitty thing they're doing, but your observation is correct. My job working on NIH-funded research projects is directly in their path, so I wish they weren't stomping a mudhole across science and technology. But they are, and, as you note, they're doing it very effectively and with incredible speed. If it's outside our capability as a community to ev…

But they are doing it right - by their metric. Which is not the one others want them to be using.
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