And the beat goes on. .

[[e-mail]]

Does anyone REALLY wonder why we're 20 trillion in debt (not counting unfunded mandates up the ying yang)? This is just one small poker chip that rolled away from the table. $43 million for a gas station in an area that doesn't appear to have that many vehicles? WTF is the pentagon doing building filling stations? I don't care if this is just plain malfeasance ( but I seriously doubt it) or laundering money for black ops, or just plain greed and corruption, someone's ass needs to be in Leavenworth.

[Deleted]

Hey, Commie! That gas station paid for some guy's yacht AND beach house in SoCal. Don't like it? Move to the USSR where other capitalist-hating socialist Muslins live!

[[e-mail]]

Nov 5, 2015 16:06:33 GMT -5 @sipowitz said:

Just grouchy. I suspect the Pooh is overflying my house and spraying old bay laced with Midol into the atmosphere.

[rally2xs]

Nov 5, 2015 15:46:01 GMT -5 [e-mail] said:

Does anyone REALLY wonder why we're 20 trillion in debt (not counting unfunded mandates up the ying yang)? This is just one small poker chip that rolled away from the table. $43 million for a gas station in an area that doesn't appear to have that many vehicles? WTF is the pentagon doing building filling stations? I don't care if this is just plain malfeasance ( but I seriously doubt it) or laundering money for black ops, or just plain greed and corruption, someone's ass needs to be in Leavenworth.

Well, there you go - the gov't doing things that private industry should be doing.  That's how you end up spending trillions.   The gov't doesn't have but a few people in it that care whether tax money is wasted, and hordes of people that are all looking for ways to waste it, all to their own advantage of course.   Because this situation cannot be remedied, IOW you _can't_ fix "waste, fraud, and abuse" because nobody on the correct side of things gives a F, the only solution is to have the gov't do as little as we can get away, and get private industry to do the rest.   TSA should be privatized - the goons at the security lines would be much more polite and they would move the lines faster too, because they would get paid by piecework most likely.  Privatize Air Traffic Control, and it wouldn't take decades to deploy new radar and software, there would be hundreds of corporate engineers and accountants all looking for better and cheaper ways to do the same thing at the same safety level for less money.   Its how private industry works.  The Canadians privatized their ATC, and now contract out their services all over the world.  We should do something like that.   And on and on.  Get the Gov't the H out of as much as we can get it out of, and our overall expenditures will come down.

[[e-mail]]

Privatize as in Halliburton, Backwater, and the Federal Reserve? Great idea.

[rally2xs]

Nov 5, 2015 17:17:12 GMT -5 [e-mail] said:

Privatize as in Halliburton, Backwater, and the Federal Reserve? Great idea.

Yep.  Halliburton had the maintenance contract at Camp Victory in Iraq when I was there and the service was outstanding.  Blackwater protected our diplomats quite effectively.  DR is a bank, so 2 out of 3 is pretty good I think. 

[[e-mail]]

I'm glad that it worked out for you. Contractors (mercenaries) are used because they are not listed as troops, bypassing any meddling by a sleeping Congress, and are not subject to military rules of engagement. That's why we were bitching so loud for immunity for them in Iraq. That hot shower you had came at a very high price due to the cost overruns and no bid contracts. This, plus the billons of dollars stolen or "lost" and the countless lives lost on all sides in a place that was no threat to us is owned by all of us, and our grandchildren.

What was that little white pony in Animal Farm that benefitted from the Pig's takeover? Was it Clover?

[bobathon]

I'm just delighted that while we can't pay for our own crap here in the states, we have an unused billion just laying around, to hand to Nuttyahoo.

[rally2xs]

Nov 6, 2015 7:28:34 GMT -5 [e-mail] said:

I'm glad that it worked out for you. Contractors (mercenaries) are used because they are not listed as troops, bypassing any meddling by a sleeping Congress, and are not subject to military rules of engagement. That's why we were bitching so loud for immunity for them in Iraq. That hot shower you had came at a very high price due to the cost overruns and no bid contracts. This, plus the billons of dollars stolen or "lost" and the countless lives lost on all sides in a place that was no threat to us is owned by all of us, and our grandchildren.

What was that little white pony in Animal Farm that benefitted from the Pig's takeover? Was it Clover?

Yes, getting help in a war zone from contractors that have to live where they might have a rocket fall on them and explode is bloody expensive.  It wasn't the "no bid" contracts that made it expensive, and even then, they screwed up and hired Iraqis to do some stuff that was electrical, and some people were fried in their showers when the lack of proper grounding killed them.   Don't know if that was Halliburton or not.   But yeah, again, the service was outstanding from Halliburton.

I don't think they used these contractors for diplomatic protection for reasons other than they have much better things to do with soldiers that have that level of training.  The Blackwater guys are usually ex-Rangers and ex-Seals that, when in the service, don't have hanging around embassies and riding shotgun in diplomatic vehicles as their primary functionality.   Their primary functionality is hostage rescue and sneaking up on high value targets and neutralizing them.

Blackwater and others would need immunity because, due to the nature of defending against terrorists that don't wear uniforms, mistaken killings of non-combatants is a very high risk if you don't want to be hesitating to the point of getting yourself and the diplomatic corps toasted by bad guys.   They literally have to shoot first and ask questions later, or they will not survive the duty.   So, no immunity, no Blackwater, or any other contractor.   I can get along with that.

[Deleted]

I can get along with that.

How noble of you. Willing to accept civilian bystander casualties in a conflict where you are literally at 0% risk.

You're really sick, you know that? You have absolutely zero empathy, and the only living thing on this world that you care about is yourself.

[[e-mail]]

Nov 5, 2015 16:33:07 GMT -5 [e-mail] said:

Nov 5, 2015 16:06:33 GMT -5 @sipowitz said:

Just grouchy. I suspect the Pooh is overflying my house and spraying old bay laced with Midol into the atmosphere.

Ahem: I repeat. I suspect the Pooh is overflying my house and spraying old bay laced with Midol into the atmosphere.  

[bobathon]

Nov 6, 2015 9:40:15 GMT -5 @sipowitz said:

I can get along with that.

How noble of you. Willing to accept civilian bystander casualties in a conflict where you are literally at 0% risk.

You're really sick, you know that? You have absolutely zero empathy, and the only living thing on this world that you care about is yourself.

And that's why his motto is "E pluribus I got mine, bitches". He's happy to mooch off our collective generosity, and loathe to pay it forward (i.e. invest in the nation). And why he's on ignore, I just can't bear that much hypocrisy and misanthropy. He's veritably sociopathic.


PS He can accept something with less than 100% perfect effectiveness? There's that hypocrisy again...

[rally2xs]

Nov 6, 2015 9:40:15 GMT -5 @sipowitz said:

I can get along with that.

How noble of you. Willing to accept civilian bystander casualties in a conflict where you are literally at 0% risk.

You're really sick, you know that? You have absolutely zero empathy, and the only living thing on this world that you care about is yourself.

I am willing to accept civilian bystander casualties when the alternative is US security personnel casualties.  If you want our people getting killed instead of the bad guys, there's something wrong with you.

[bobathon]

Yep, I sure am glad for that ignore function.

[pastafari]

Rally thinks that Private companies are white knights, with the best interests of the country at heart. LOL.

Private industry and government are both hazardous, both full of crooks, but only one has the interest of the people as it's stated objective. It might not meet that objective as efficiently as possible, but the alternative is a system without the interests of the people in mind.

[bobathon]

It's not that the oligarchs hate you (or love you), it's just that you have wealth and they want it for themselves.

[rally2xs]

Nov 6, 2015 12:53:05 GMT -5 pastafari said:

Rally thinks that Private companies are white knights, with the best interests of the country at heart. LOL.

Private industry and government are both hazardous, both full of crooks, but only one has the interest of the people as it's stated objective. It might not meet that objective as efficiently as possible, but the alternative is a system without the interests of the people in mind.

They are not white knights, but can be made to act that way with the proper regulation.  The danger is to over-regulate them and damage their ability to do the things that are beneficial to the American people.

Yeah, there's crooks in gov't and private industry both.  Its just that the ones in gov't get a lot less scrutiny than the ones in private industry, where all involved have a personal interest in the efficiency with which the company conducts business.  The less waste, fraud, and abuse in the company, the more everyone stands to take home in their paychecks.

[bobathon]

Your posts look smarter every day: "This post is hidden."

[rally2xs]

Nov 6, 2015 17:11:54 GMT -5 bobathon said:

Your posts look smarter every day: "This post is hidden."

I don't think I'd ever brag about being so delicate that I couldn't stand to encounter differing opinions.   Only liberals, I think...

[bobathon]

Yeah, that's beautiful: "This post is hidden." Smartest thing you ever wrote, rally.

[pastafari]

Nov 7, 2015 5:33:59 GMT -5 rally2xs said:

Nov 6, 2015 17:11:54 GMT -5 bobathon said:

Your posts look smarter every day: "This post is hidden."

I don't think I'd ever brag about being so delicate that I couldn't stand to encounter differing opinions.   Only liberals, I think...

[pastafari]

rally2xs said:

pastafari said:

Rally thinks that Private companies are white knights, with the best interests of the country at heart. LOL.

Private industry and government are both hazardous, both full of crooks, but only one has the interest of the people as it's stated objective. It might not meet that objective as efficiently as possible, but the alternative is a system without the interests of the people in mind.

They are not white knights, but can be made to act that way with the proper regulation. The danger is to over-regulate them and damage their ability to do the things that are beneficial to the American people.

It has never been, and will never be, the intent of capitalism to benefit the American people.

Yeah, there's crooks in gov't and private industry both. Its just that the ones in gov't get a lot less scrutiny than the ones in private industry,

They are not white knights, but can be made to act that way with the proper regulation.

where all involved have a personal interest in the efficiency with which the company conducts business. The less waste, fraud, and abuse in the company, the more everyone stands to take home in their paychecks.

That's not always true. Usually very few people in the company stand to see any increase in pay based on decreased waste, fraud, and abuse.

But let's say that it is true, why wouldn't that apply to the US government as an enterprise of the people? Don't we hall have a personal interest in the way IT conducts business? Why not take the system that does have a beneficial purpose, and apply the regulation to that?

[rally2xs]

"But let's say that it is true, why wouldn't that apply to the US government as an enterprise of the people? Don't we hall have a personal interest in the way IT conducts business? Why not take the system that does have a beneficial purpose, and apply the regulation to that?"

The average gov't worker has no vested interest in ferreting out waste, fraud, and abuse. Doing so is actually counterproductive, because if you save a pile of money in your own department, you will, for the next funding year, have your funds reduced because, "You didn't need it last time, so we're not going to allocate unneeded money."

If its in someone else's department, there is a great chance of getting toasted in retaliation for being a whistle blower. Lose job. Its one great way to get fired as a gov't employee.

And making things more efficient is rarely monetarily rewarded. It can happen, but it is way unlikely.

There was a waste, fraud, and abuse hotline, and yeah, you could use it, but if they can trace the call back to you and someone loses some funding over it, you're going to probably lose your job...

And so it goes. The managers WANT to be ABLE to spend all necessary money to get the job done, so ensuring that there is an adequate money flow is a huge concern. So, the managers are all "in" on acquiring as much as they can. Yeah, they all want to do good - more $$$ usually means higher quality work 'cuz then you can pay people OT and things like that when something starts going south, but overall, a private company would be looking far harder at _not_ spending the money. Then they could have at least a prayer of a raise in wages, or possibly, if an employee-owned company, better stock dividends.

I remember stories of such a company located in Tiffin, Ohio, a machine tool place. They were employee-owned, and instituted great social pressure on doing the job right the first time, and not creating waste. If you were careless and broke a tool bit or something, and had to go to the tool crib for a new one, the others that saw this would pick up something metallic and start rapping it on something else metallic as you walked all the way back to the tool crib, letting you know that you let then down, and created unnecessary expense. Stories from my early life when still working in NW Ohio and knowing people that knew those people.

The machine tool place, and most of the other industry in and around Tiffin, Ohio have either moved out of the country, or gone out of business from the competition of foreign companies that not only don't pay US income taxes, but also have their own nation's VAT tax removed from their exports. We can't tariff them because of WTO, so the 60,000 factories that have disappeared from US landscape since 2000 according to Bernie Sanders have done so for these reasons. Plus, because of our extremely pernicious form of taxation, all the expenses of the income taxes incurred by the manufacturer are embedded in the product as it leaves for a foreign port, so we have trouble selling it there, too.

[MF]

Nov 7, 2015 5:33:59 GMT -5 rally2xs said:

Nov 6, 2015 17:11:54 GMT -5 bobathon said:

Your posts look smarter every day: "This post is hidden."

I don't think I'd ever brag about being so delicate that I couldn't stand to encounter differing opinions.   Only liberals, I think...

They have their blinders on.like a stupid horse, they don't realize what they are missing. They have shut down their minds and created 0 possibility,,,,,their loss,,

[bobathon]

Nov 7, 2015 18:56:45 GMT -5 MF said:

Nov 7, 2015 5:33:59 GMT -5 rally2xs said:

I don't think I'd ever brag about being so delicate that I couldn't stand to encounter differing opinions.   Only liberals, I think...

They have their blinders on.like a stupid horse, they don't realize what they are missing. They have shut down their minds and created 0 possibility,,,,,their loss,,

We know exactly what we are missing and it's no loss. Hell, beyond his insanity, he's full of crap about exposure to other views, himself! Remember "facts, hell"? And he poo-poos every source mentioned in opposition to his opinions without even checking them. So, you know, bag of dicks. 

[MF]

Nov 7, 2015 19:11:50 GMT -5 bobathon said:

Nov 7, 2015 18:56:45 GMT -5 MF said:

They have their blinders on.like a stupid horse, they don't realize what they are missing. They have shut down their minds and created 0 possibility,,,,,their loss,,

We know exactly what we are missing and it's no loss. Hell, beyond his insanity, he's full of crap about exposure to other views, himself! Remember "facts, hell"? And he poo-poos every source mentioned in opposition to his opinions without even checking them. So, you know, bag of dicks

I see you have studied listening and communication well....it shows..

[bobathon]

You so funny.

[pastafari]

rally2xs said:

"But let's say that it is true, why wouldn't that apply to the US government as an enterprise of the people? Don't we hall have a personal interest in the way IT conducts business? Why not take the system that does have a beneficial purpose, and apply the regulation to that?"

The average gov't worker has no vested interest in ferreting out waste, fraud, and abuse. Doing so is actually counterproductive, because if you save a pile of money in your own department, you will, for the next funding year, have your funds reduced because, "You didn't need it last time, so we're not going to allocate unneeded money."

The average worker, government or otherwise, has no vested interest in ferreting out waste, fraud, and abuse. Unless they see a direct impact to their paycheck (positive or negative), they have no incentive to give a shit.

If its in someone else's department, there is a great chance of getting toasted in retaliation for being a whistle blower. Lose job. Its one great way to get fired as a gov't employee.

And making things more efficient is rarely monetarily rewarded. It can happen, but it is way unlikely.

There was a waste, fraud, and abuse hotline, and yeah, you could use it, but if they can trace the call back to you and someone loses some funding over it, you're going to probably lose your job...

Your complaint, then, is with a changeable system. Find a way to protect the whistle-blowers.

I remember stories of such a company located in Tiffin, Ohio, a machine tool place. They were employee-owned, and instituted great social pressure on doing the job right the first time, and not creating waste. If you were careless and broke a tool bit or something, and had to go to the tool crib for a new one, the others that saw this would pick up something metallic and start rapping it on something else metallic as you walked all the way back to the tool crib, letting you know that you let then down, and created unnecessary expense.

Did they get docked for broken tools? Did they get bonuses for going long periods without breaking a tool? Otherwise, this company created a system of shaming people not for their own benefit, but for the benefit only of those at the top.

If you want the average worker, government or otherwise, to actively care about WF&A, you need to incentivize it.

[bobathon]

Why bother, it won't be 100% effective, neither in government nor in industry?


/snark