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Post by iamjumbo on Mar 25, 2013 6:52:40 GMT -6
what the hell is your point? i was defending YOUR stance. i certainly didn't cherry pick anything at all My bad.  Must be having an almost senior moment, a flash back or a stroke. Or I am still trying to get used to the Kindle screen. be thankful. the flashbacks never materialized for me |
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Post by Californian on Mar 25, 2013 9:18:04 GMT -6
Jim: Who does create jobs, then, if not "rich people"? P.S. My IQ is 139.  |
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Post by SubSurfCPO(ret) on Mar 25, 2013 10:31:02 GMT -6
My bad. Must be having an almost senior moment, a flash back or a stroke. Or I am still trying to get used to the Kindle screen. be thankful. the flashbacks never materialized for me See, this is what I mean. Your statement seems to start off in a supportive tone, but then (and I don`t mean this rudely) how is your comment supportive? Is it confusing to anyone else? Because if not, I am seriously on my way to see my doctor. |
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Post by iamjumbo on Mar 29, 2013 5:28:32 GMT -6
Jim: Who does create jobs, then, if not "rich people"? P.S. My IQ is 139. if true, i'll have to give you that. mine is only 134. of course, that truly means nothing at all, except that you're able to learn a bit better than i can. the vast majority of jobs are created by small businesses. that doesn't necessarily mean mom and pop operations, but, it means sole proprietorships, and partnerships, whose owners can seldom be classified as rich. how many jobs has jack welch created with the $2million he spent on a birthday party, or the who knows how much gold shower curtains? |
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Post by iamjumbo on Mar 29, 2013 5:30:49 GMT -6
be thankful. the flashbacks never materialized for me See, this is what I mean. Your statement seems to start off in a supportive tone, but then (and I don`t mean this rudely) how is your comment supportive? Is it confusing to anyone else? Because if not, I am seriously on my way to see my doctor. don't waste the copay on the doctor. of course my comment was supportive. you mentioned that you might be having flashbacks. i always wanted to, and never did |
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Post by SubSurfCPO(ret) on Mar 29, 2013 5:56:50 GMT -6
See, this is what I mean. Your statement seems to start off in a supportive tone, but then (and I don`t mean this rudely) how is your comment supportive? Is it confusing to anyone else? Because if not, I am seriously on my way to see my doctor. don't waste the copay on the doctor. of course my comment was supportive. you mentioned that you might be having flashbacks. i always wanted to, and never did That is an odd way of being supportive, but thanks. |
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Post by starbux on Mar 29, 2013 21:55:29 GMT -6
Jim: Who does create jobs, then, if not "rich people"? P.S. My IQ is 139. if true, i'll have to give you that. mine is only 134. of course, that truly means nothing at all, except that you're able to learn a bit better than i can. the vast majority of jobs are created by small businesses. that doesn't necessarily mean mom and pop operations, but, it means sole proprietorships, and partnerships, whose owners can seldom be classified as rich. how many jobs has jack welch created with the $2million he spent on a birthday party, or the who knows how much gold shower curtains? How many became super rich on behest of the tax payer also. I.e thanks to Chenney and Rummy, they convinced congress that it is cheaper to have a contractor do the work of the military. All the jobs are non-combatant with the exception of Blackjwater, XE or whatever the hell that POS company is calling itself these days. Rummy comes out boasting of a leaner and meaner more agile force. Hmmmm.. What does that mean. That means they go REMF's a term Joe and BOB are probably familiar with. Those include admin, mechanics, transport and logistics types. Then they said oh we actually need people to those jobs. Hmmm what to do? Oh I know, we replace that guy we fired that was making 25 to 30k a year. And hire a contractor for 70 to 110k a year. That is what makes me mad as hell. Yearly salary for an E3-E4 enlisted guy about 25K-30K. if married a little more if they live in an area with good housing allowance. Maybe upto 10-12k of tax free extra money. But Compare that to: Deployed Aircraft Mechanic: 210-250k depending on equivalent military skill level. Deployed Bus Driver: 90-110K Deployed Security Specialist: 125-140K His supervisor about 160K Civil Engineering specialist 80-125K All of which the first 80k is tax free, if you stay at least 330 days and can claim ex-patriot status. That is just the individual pay of the employee. That does not include the admin overhead cost which is usually almost double. And the companies get a replacement bonus(Typically 6 figures) to recruit hire and train a new employee due to a casualty. I have not any got started on the money spent for contingency procurement of equipment. So, Dyncorps, Battlespace, Bechtel, Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Boeing, SAIC and General Atomics, all provided jobs. Eric Prince is a real rich man and provided plenty of jobs. Who wrote the check at the end? The taxpayer, with the interest that we will be paying off in the next century. |
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Post by SubSurfCPO(ret) on Mar 30, 2013 6:55:28 GMT -6
You forgot EG&G on that list.
I think your response is more fantasy than fact and there is so much more to this comment than Bob had in mind with just a simple question. The conspiracies around the industrial-military complex kicked into high gear after the JFK assassination. That is really what you are speaking about.
First order of business, you hire contractors when...
1) the military can't do the job because of a lack of training or infrastructure
2) the military can't do the job because of a lack of support by the American people, but the need for the service still exists
Northrop Grumman - the military doesn't have the capability to build the equipment they build. Additionally, the military doesn't possess the technical ability to properly maintain it. The military positions you mention (E4, E5) are low pay. So they get out and go to work for the contractor and the military replaces that person with another straight out of school with zero real world experience. This affects the equipment availability for use. As a real world example. North Korea launches rockets tomorrow and the only person between us and them is an 18yo from Kansas. Big hearted and brave, but no experience. The American people demand readiness and detest inefficiency.NG has that top dollar tech rep on station or on call because of past history doing business with the US.
Oh and please, the favorite whipping boys of the left are the Bush Brigade. I made more money under Clinton than I ever did any other time. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld made the military do financial reviews to make them live within their budgets. As a result, contracts were cut, managed better and efficient. I spent a lot of time training Navy personnel to do my job so they wouldn't hire me. The coddling and marginalizing of the military started with Clinton and for the Navy that meant Boorda.
Your right about one thing, I was there. But, the rest of your reasoning is way off base.
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Post by starbux on Mar 30, 2013 16:24:58 GMT -6
No I don't believe it is fantasy. It is very real! Example, most of the contractors that worked for a company called Battlespace, a company that is the primary for MQ-1B Maintenance, were mostly one timer prior service maintenance techs and crew chiefs with the exception of their MX-Superintendents and some 7 level specialists.
You are right they get out because they are not treated well, and obviously if you can make your paycheck go from 25k to 210k, not fantasy, in the AOR that is how much they make. Of course they are going to leave and I don't blame them. They make no qualms bragging about it either. Now most don't make individually 210k-250k because they mostly do staggered deployments, where they work 4 on 4 off. in that 4 months they are making to the tune of 60 to 80k, I know this first hand as a fact. I was friends with one of the contractors out there and he showed me his pay accrual sheet of how much he made in his 4 month stint, it was near 80 thousand dollars!
I understand the need for contract support for very technical purposes and specific programs that require a continuity that the average "blue suitor," can not provide. Such as scientists and engineers that are doing OT/DT&E for future weapon systems. In this case, because of the military's stance on not wanting people to "Homestead," at one base. The average Air Force guy spends no more than 3 to 4 years on any installation without being PCS'd. It is considered bad for a career to stay at a base or unit much longer, especially because of the requirement to move up into higher positions with new ranks. In this case, yes having that kind of continuity makes sense.
But things like doing admin support or general maintenance on aircraft. The enlisted force does do good job with it. When I flew tankers all of the MX were all "blue suitors." They had no problem getting the right person competent enough to do the job. With appropriate manpower projections the 18 year old from Kansas is gets the training to do his job appropriately by the time he replaces his counter part either due attrition or the counterpart moves up to the skill level jobs.
It seems to me a well ready force is one where you have a pool of personnel to take over when their counterparts leave. it used to be a 4 to 1 ratio. Now in certain career fields that ratio is 1.5 to 1. Instead of compelling people to get out to do the job as a civilian, why not make it more it more attractive to retain those same people?
I think I am not off base, I think my laser designation is right on target! At the end of the day we will see whether or not the real fantasy of getting rid of the evil dictator, and all Iraqi's will waive small American Flags will give us the return on investment for the trillion dollars spent on OIF.
Prior to OIF we had Saddam as a puppet on a string. He had no real military capabilities as we saw on the first few days of the war. Prior to OIF when it was Northern/Southern watch. Saddam could could not start the engines of a MIG-23 without us knowing. Hell, we knew when they were gassing their birds up on the tarmac. We would scramble additional fighters F-15's out of Insirlek, PSAB or F-14's off of one of your careers. They would overfly those airfields as a show of force.
So I have some pretty good insight, for my bias.
I was there as well.
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Post by SubSurfCPO(ret) on Mar 30, 2013 17:17:00 GMT -6
I was there the first time in uniform, by the time the second one rolled around I was a contractor. Saddam was a bad guy and we didn't have anyone on a string over there. We never have - ever. I have a problem hanging everything on Bush. History will determine whether IOF or DS/DS was the best course. The same as history will determine if the exit strategy was carried out correctly.
As far as contractors making a ton of money - guilty. I gave up the life in 2008. I was tired, stressed, traveled and ran around with my hair on fire for too long. After Vietnam the American people couldn't stand seeing our military dying - not that it's a bad thing. But, you have to pay for someone to do the job regardless of how mundane it is. The reason it is so expensive is glory and honor. No uniform, no glory, higher cost. No benefits for the family, no SGLI, no stone at Arlington, higher cost. It doesn't matter who is in the White House. Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. I don't include Carter in that list. I was in for part of his presidency and it was terrible for the military. He doesn't count in this discussion.
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Post by starbux on Mar 30, 2013 23:08:48 GMT -6
I was there the first time in uniform, by the time the second one rolled around I was a contractor. Saddam was a bad guy and we didn't have anyone on a string over there. We never have - ever. I have a problem hanging everything on Bush. History will determine whether IOF or DS/DS was the best course. The same as history will determine if the exit strategy was carried out correctly. Agreed, Saddam was a real Shthead. Question is what did we gain by getting rid of him? The goal was never to make Iraq a better place for the Iraqi people. Granted, that was the intended fringe benefit. We really wanted the strategic presence of squeezing Iran. So we go after the Suni dictator. Ok, I concide, we did not have him on a string, but he really had no external projection of power. His presence of power was internal and a facade that Iraq had a strong military influence, similar to Iran doing the same thing. All bark no bite. Saddam would parade his military around in the town square, flip us off, burn our flag and fire AK-47 in the air. All for the effect of keeping internal order amongst his own population by showing the people that they were they were stronger than they really were. The question will be how much of an external threat was he. Al Quaida was not a friend of Saddam, in fact they were shouting Muqtada when they were hanging his A$$. Point is... Sunni's are not loyal to the Kalifate or the ayatollah. Shiites are. With the exception of the Wahhabi Sunni Muslims(The "Westboro Baptist Church of Muslims) Sunni's tend to be a little less fanatical then Shiites. That is why I am skeptical if we will get the ROI for the 8 year war. Now Iraq is lead by Shiite's who will more likely side with Iran than against it. The funny thing is that when we were leaving Balad AB, formally known as Ali Bacher a premier Iraqi Air Force Base, if you want to call it that, under Saddam. We were attacked less. When we were leaving, the F-16's bugged out a few weeks before us. The theory was, as soon as the loud jet noise stopped, then the IDF attacks would go up. Well the exact opposite happened. The attacks went down to almost none, except a occasional failed attempts. This suggests to me that they wanted us to get the FCK out of their country and leave them alone. As far as contractors making a ton of money - guilty. I gave up the life in 2008. I was tired, stressed, traveled and ran around with my hair on fire for too long. After Vietnam the American people couldn't stand seeing our military dying - not that it's a bad thing. But, you have to pay for someone to do the job regardless of how mundane it is. The reason it is so expensive is glory and honor. No uniform, no glory, higher cost. No benefits for the family, no SGLI, no stone at Arlington, higher cost. It doesn't matter who is in the White House. Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. I don't include Carter in that list. I was in for part of his presidency and it was terrible for the military. He doesn't count in this discussion. Ironically, I was a contractor before joining. A state side one, so no Bentley in my garage, just a 10 year old Corvette. I was low level engineer tech, made good money for a two year degree education while working on my engineering bachelors degree, for state side jobs. Ironically there was more stateside contract work under Clinton. Obviously those jobs went away to pay for OIE/OEF. Lots of friends lost jobs, or went to do the overseas stuff to make lots and lots of cheddar. Luckily I was always disgruntled. So I was not "Whole Hearted kid from Kansas." I joined for the sole reason to get free Airline Pilot Training, expecting to make lots of money and live the high life afterwords. The airlines crashed no pun intended, that did not go as planned. Maybe in a few years when the mandatory retirement takes place, it will. Anyway, I bought into the idea that OIF was a good idea while in ROTC playing military. But I soon realized after a few deployments, what a bunch of crap that were all sold. I stopped believing in the cause and only supported it only because I was ordered. As far as I am concerned my entire career in Iraq was not for the benefit for the American people, with the exception of some people working in Wall Street. Granted I owed them back for the pilot training. I consider it payed back with interest. I don't blame you for taking contracting jobs. I would be driving a Bentley Continental GT Black edition and living in bigger apartment in my high-rise if I had the chance to do that. I could go and do that now, flying predators for the Army as a civi, but I biding my time to see what happens. I run my own company with a bro, making a descent living with good potential to make it big. I still am a reservist, I am only doing that to keep the investment on 10 years of my life thrown down the drain going to make a retirement check if I need it. Yeah I agree Carter was a real POS. He will go down as the worst president ever! |
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Post by SubSurfCPO(ret) on Mar 31, 2013 5:41:43 GMT -6
ROI in a military action? No.
Once we announced we were leaving it became a waiting game.
OIF a good idea in ROTC,then an awakening. (I'm just paraphrasing). Yeah, it's all really cool until the spectre of death shows up. Then it is a matter of doing your time, watching your back and your buddies back. Somewhere around my 15th deployment I started looking at the big flick. Small cog big machine, if you don't believe in it you won't survive it and most important for me, my guys wouldn't make it.
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Post by starbux on Mar 31, 2013 23:05:00 GMT -6
ROI in a military action? No. On a pragmatic note, will we gain everything that we wanted for the money spent? I mean if the world is only 5% better at the end of the day will the trillions of dollars have been worth it? Did we buy an old barely working Ford pinto for the price of a Ferrari? Once we announced we were leaving it became a waiting game. Perhaps, but we had spent a lot of resources up to that point. Not sure how much longer we could have gone. No denying it, we didn't flush the toilet after taking a big steaming pile of Sht in it. OIF a good idea in ROTC,then an awakening. (I'm just paraphrasing). Yeah, it's all really cool until the spectre of death shows up. Then it is a matter of doing your time, watching your back and your buddies back. Somewhere around my 15th deployment I started looking at the big flick. Small cog big machine, if you don't believe in it you won't survive it and most important for me, my guys wouldn't make it. Academically speaking we all thought a stronger strategic presence would be good overall. No one knew how drug out this was going to be. We all naively thought this would be like ODS, get in get out, WRONG!  We should have followed history. We tried to gain strategic presence once with Iran during the Twin Pillar strategy. That didn't exactly work the way we wanted. For me I lost belief in the cause when seeing how much money we dumped down the drain. As for the strategic cause I lost sight on that years ago. But I always had belief in the specific mission involved in. I knew the implications of not getting to an AR track on time to refuel fighters, could have grave consequences for guys on the ground. In the predator we all knew that it was extremely important to get the timely intel in and be ready to back up a JTAC and ground force CC. Oh well here's hoping, but until I see that day, I will be forever skeptical. |
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Post by SubSurfCPO(ret) on Apr 1, 2013 4:31:12 GMT -6
Oh well here's hoping, but until I see that day, I will be forever skeptical. So are we two sides of one coin? Sent from my LS670 using proboards |
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Post by iamjumbo on Apr 4, 2013 3:46:28 GMT -6
the bottom line is that, like everything else, it is an irrefutable FACT that the government can do EVERYTHING cheaper than a private corporation ever will. the ONLY thing that privatizing ANY government service does is enrich the executives of a corporation at the expense of the american people.
y'all have had it made. when i was in the navy, i got $87.50 a month as an e-2, and $124 a month as an e-3, including flight and combat pay of six dollars a month. we had some civilians, but they were government employees, and a gs-4 made less than a grand a month.
on the question of iraq, obviously, invading iraq was abjectly stupid. there were NO terrorists in iraq until we allowed them in. sadaam hated them more than we did. iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 9-11. had things been done right, and all of those troops gone to afghanistan, AND we fought the war like it is supposed to be fought, the taliban would be nonexistent now
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Post by SubSurfCPO(ret) on Apr 4, 2013 7:33:41 GMT -6
I have to disagree on one point (just one for now): The government cannot do everything cheaper than private companies. The initial cost maybe lower, but the cost over time or life of component is drastically hired for a sole government project. Routinely, whatever "it" is the government is maintaining no longer works and is not mission capable. I spent too many years trying to make them self sufficient. It didn't work. They don't want long mean time between failure. They want it to be 100% available with low or zero effort on their part. Can't be done without civilians. I am probably still one of the only contractors that gave money back to the government. I was told "you can't do that". $5.4M - it wasn't much, but I did my job and brought it in under budget.
I see now that you are pining for that great utopian society. Keep it up, it helps keeps things from spiraling out of control. Oh sorry, we are already there with $16.8T and counting.
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Post by iamjumbo on Apr 5, 2013 5:36:45 GMT -6
I have to disagree on one point (just one for now): The government cannot do everything cheaper than private companies. The initial cost maybe lower, but the cost over time or life of component is drastically hired for a sole government project. Routinely, whatever "it" is the government is maintaining no longer works and is not mission capable. I spent too many years trying to make them self sufficient. It didn't work. They don't want long mean time between failure. They want it to be 100% available with low or zero effort on their part. Can't be done without civilians. I am probably still one of the only contractors that gave money back to the government. I was told "you can't do that". $5.4M - it wasn't much, but I did my job and brought it in under budget. I see now that you are pining for that great utopian society. Keep it up, it helps keeps things from spiraling out of control. Oh sorry, we are already there with $16.8T and counting. the biggest part of the $16.8T went to haliburton and it's ilk |
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Post by SubSurfCPO(ret) on Apr 5, 2013 7:08:03 GMT -6
Jumbo, your Bush-hating clouds your response and reason. The biggest part of the debt is the interest paid on the debt followed by social security, followed by Health and Human Services (Medicare - Medicaid), followed by DoD. Halliburton -no, GE is the big fish. Why aren't you howling about them? Why are you screaming about GE not paying taxes?
Your responses are tissue.
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Post by iamjumbo on Apr 7, 2013 4:42:28 GMT -6
Jumbo, your Bush-hating clouds your response and reason. The biggest part of the debt is the interest paid on the debt followed by social security, followed by Health and Human Services (Medicare - Medicaid), followed by DoD. Halliburton -no, GE is the big fish. Why aren't you howling about them? Why are you screaming about GE not paying taxes? Your responses are tissue. obviously, ge is included in the "ilk". i've already mentioned welch's gold shower curtains. bush hating has nothing to do with it. what DOES have EVERYTHING to do with it is your failure to talk about why the deficit is so high, which IS bush and dickie boy's doing. the simple FACT is that clinton left the larges surplus in history, and dumbya and his cronies turned that surplus into the largest deficit in history within three years. every first grader can comprehend the fact that, EVERYTHING that obama has ever proposed does not cost as much as what dumbya spent in the first three years that he was president. nonetheless, if every corporation was forced to pay the taxes it owes, and NO taxpayer money went to subsidize any corporation, every program could be paid for with money left over |
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Post by SubSurfCPO(ret) on Apr 7, 2013 5:09:41 GMT -6
I would love to see the proof and math on this since everyone sees it differently.
Sent from my LS670 using proboards
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2013 3:38:44 GMT -6
I would love to see the proof and math on this since everyone sees it differently. Sent from my LS670 using proboards Basic Economic theory is that the private sector does things more efficiently and more effectively because they are driven by profit. In contrast to governments who aren't driven by government and therefore more likely to pour money down blackholes. In addition working on public projects tends to make private enterprise act like government agencies because they have this customer who will never run out of money and who will be slow to change unlike other clients. |
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Post by iamjumbo on Apr 10, 2013 2:30:26 GMT -6
I would love to see the proof and math on this since everyone sees it differently. Sent from my LS670 using proboards Basic Economic theory is that the private sector does things more efficiently and more effectively because they are driven by profit. In contrast to governments who aren't driven by government and therefore more likely to pour money down blackholes. In addition working on public projects tends to make private enterprise act like government agencies because they have this customer who will never run out of money and who will be slow to change unlike other clients. obviously, the reason that government can do it cheaper is profit. profit is the ONLY thing that matters to a corporation. the government could pay the same wages and benefits, and without the profit, it would obviously be cheaper. you brought up the other reason why it would be cheaper. there would be no cost "overruns" if the government was doing the job. outfits like haliburton intend to defraud the government when they sign the contract. of course, as long as dickey boy was running the show for eight years, haliburtion was given the contracts even though they were double the bid of other companies |
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Post by iamjumbo on Apr 10, 2013 2:32:31 GMT -6
I would love to see the proof and math on this since everyone sees it differently. Sent from my LS670 using proboards it's first grade math, and no, everyone else does NOT see it differently. the ONLY ones who see it differently are the lunatics at the cato institute or heritage foundation, who, of course, pass their idiocy along to faux news |
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Post by Californian on Apr 10, 2013 8:36:42 GMT -6
obviously, the reason that government can do it cheaper is profit. profit is the ONLY thing that matters to a corporation. the government could pay the same wages and benefits, and without the profit, it would obviously be cheaper. you brought up the other reason why it would be cheaper. there would be no cost "overruns" if the government was doing the job. outfits like haliburton intend to defraud the government when they sign the contract. of course, as long as dickey boy was running the show for eight years, haliburtion was given the contracts even though they were double the bid of other companies As a former elected official who perused and voted on the enactment of many contracts for all kinds of goods and services, including, but not limited to construction, labor contracts and acquisition of capital equipment, I have to tell you this is about as ignorant a collection of statements on economics as I've ever seen. They are amazing in their breadth and width of misunderstanding of the basic principles of the government/private sector interface, followed closely by an economic viewpoint that would quickly fail an 8th grade term paper. Wow. Just wow.  |
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Post by iamjumbo on Apr 11, 2013 4:19:03 GMT -6
obviously, the reason that government can do it cheaper is profit. profit is the ONLY thing that matters to a corporation. the government could pay the same wages and benefits, and without the profit, it would obviously be cheaper. you brought up the other reason why it would be cheaper. there would be no cost "overruns" if the government was doing the job. outfits like haliburton intend to defraud the government when they sign the contract. of course, as long as dickey boy was running the show for eight years, haliburtion was given the contracts even though they were double the bid of other companies As a former elected official who perused and voted on the enactment of many contracts for all kinds of goods and services, including, but not limited to construction, labor contracts and acquisition of capital equipment, I have to tell you this is about as ignorant a collection of statements on economics as I've ever seen. They are amazing in their breadth and width of misunderstanding of the basic principles of the government/private sector interface, followed closely by an economic viewpoint that would quickly fail an 8th grade term paper. Wow. Just wow. take a gander at stockton lad |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2013 7:23:47 GMT -6
obviously, the reason that government can do it cheaper is profit. profit is the ONLY thing that matters to a corporation. the government could pay the same wages and benefits, and without the profit, it would obviously be cheaper. you brought up the other reason why it would be cheaper. there would be no cost "overruns" if the government was doing the job. outfits like haliburton intend to defraud the government when they sign the contract. of course, as long as dickey boy was running the show for eight years, haliburtion was given the contracts even though they were double the bid of other companies As a former elected official who perused and voted on the enactment of many contracts for all kinds of goods and services, including, but not limited to construction, labor contracts and acquisition of capital equipment, I have to tell you this is about as ignorant a collection of statements on economics as I've ever seen. They are amazing in their breadth and width of misunderstanding of the basic principles of the government/private sector interface, followed closely by an economic viewpoint that would quickly fail an 8th grade term paper. Wow. Just wow. That is why I didn't respond. I was speechless. |
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Post by Californian on Apr 11, 2013 7:53:52 GMT -6
take a gander at stockton lad The ignorance continues, boy. Stockton is in bankruptcy because they owe CALpers, the state pension system, $900 million dollars. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2013 17:32:59 GMT -6
obviously, the reason that government can do it cheaper is profit. profit is the ONLY thing that matters to a corporation. the government could pay the same wages and benefits, and without the profit, it would obviously be cheaper. you brought up the other reason why it would be cheaper. there would be no cost "overruns" if the government was doing the job. outfits like haliburton intend to defraud the government when they sign the contract. of course, as long as dickey boy was running the show for eight years, haliburtion was given the contracts even though they were double the bid of other companies As a former elected official who perused and voted on the enactment of many contracts for all kinds of goods and services, including, but not limited to construction, labor contracts and acquisition of capital equipment, I have to tell you this is about as ignorant a collection of statements on economics as I've ever seen. They are amazing in their breadth and width of misunderstanding of the basic principles of the government/private sector interface, followed closely by an economic viewpoint that would quickly fail an 8th grade term paper. Wow. Just wow. To add on. Our Federal Government also developed a stimulus package to help Australia through the GFC. One parts of it was invest in capital works in schools. This project saw a massive blow out in costs, contractors overcharging. In addition public schools were limited to only a few templates of building they could implement. For example if they wanted a new hall they had to get the hall as per the fixed design as opposed to one that would be designed to meet their needs. While many schools got capital works they needed they wondered if it was worth the price. The other one was to subsidise the installation of insulation into roofs of homes. The effect of this was the government was allowing unlicensed contractors to implement the insulation which meant the following; A material increase in house fires across the period. A number of labourers dying in fires due to being part of unqualified operations A lot of home owners having to rip the insulation out and having it replaced at their own cost. And of course you had the usual array of rorting and overcharging |
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Post by iamjumbo on Apr 13, 2013 4:10:36 GMT -6
take a gander at stockton lad The ignorance continues, boy. Stockton is in bankruptcy because they owe CALpers, the state pension system, $900 million dollars. that's just a small part of it lad. a large part of it is weston ranch, and other places like it. an even larger part of it is the stadium, and the downtown *bullcrap* in which the city put up the money so that private corporations could avoid paying taxes. obviously, if the tax base were enlarged, rather than shrunk, stockton would not be bankrupt get a grip |
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Post by iamjumbo on Apr 13, 2013 4:15:40 GMT -6
As a former elected official who perused and voted on the enactment of many contracts for all kinds of goods and services, including, but not limited to construction, labor contracts and acquisition of capital equipment, I have to tell you this is about as ignorant a collection of statements on economics as I've ever seen. They are amazing in their breadth and width of misunderstanding of the basic principles of the government/private sector interface, followed closely by an economic viewpoint that would quickly fail an 8th grade term paper. Wow. Just wow. To add on. Our Federal Government also developed a stimulus package to help Australia through the GFC. One parts of it was invest in capital works in schools. This project saw a massive blow out in costs, contractors overcharging. In addition public schools were limited to only a few templates of building they could implement. For example if they wanted a new hall they had to get the hall as per the fixed design as opposed to one that would be designed to meet their needs. While many schools got capital works they needed they wondered if it was worth the price. The other one was to subsidise the installation of insulation into roofs of homes. The effect of this was the government was allowing unlicensed contractors to implement the insulation which meant the following; A material increase in house fires across the period. A number of labourers dying in fires due to being part of unqualified operations A lot of home owners having to rip the insulation out and having it replaced at their own cost. And of course you had the usual array of rorting and overcharging which is precisely what i'm talking about. if the government were doing the job, obviously, none of those things would have happened. anytime a private company,especially a large corporation such as haliburton, are contracted by the government for something, the overwhelming majority of them will screw the government. if the government did the job, and everyone was on the government payroll, instead of contracting with a private corporation to do it, there would be no gouging and cost overruns. |
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Must be having an almost senior moment, a flash back or a stroke. Or I am still trying to get used to the Kindle screen. 
We should have followed history. We tried to gain strategic presence once with Iran during the Twin Pillar strategy. That didn't exactly work the way we wanted.
