Political Roundtable Part XXVII

[pancakes3]

this buttigieg talk does have me wondering what is it about booker that people don't like. he's got the credentials and walks the walk when it comes to track records re: public servant.

[dckingsfan]

this buttigieg talk does have me wondering what is it about booker that people don't like. he's got the credentials and walks the walk when it comes to track records re: public servant.

Interesting how Buttigieg, Booker and Beto each took different approaches to campaigning. Seems like Buttigieg just ran the smarter campaign?

But you are right about Booker - he has very solid credentials.

[doclinkin]

I think Buttigieg has quiet backing from big money donors hedging their bets against Warren/Sanders and all. He also picks up votes from Centrist/Moderate types who want an alternative to Uncle Joe. As Biden slipped in the polls, Pete added votes. And too, don't discount prejudice. Booker is no Barak when it comes to charisma, to overcome the prejudice and the idea of what being 'presidential' looks like. Booker is a bit of a flamethrower instead of a calm cool patient type. The Middle states and Northeast early vote states will look for guys who remind them of their neighbor. Pete comes off as more Mr Rogers than the candidate from tough urban New Jersey.

[pancakes3]

Read on Twitter

[dobrojim]

Wow, you don't say! You realize that like 90% of federal government consulting/contracting is straight up grifting right? Legitimately almost every single person working for BAH, Deloitte, PWC, etc. has a completely pointless job.

That's a pretty extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims merit extraordinary evidence.

I'm just catching up on this thread but I had to jump in on that one.


editorial comment -
It's the kind of "common knowledge" that know-nothings like DJT
market in all the time. It resonates with a previously held point of
view and therefore is not robustly examined.

[gtn130]

Wow, you don't say! You realize that like 90% of federal government consulting/contracting is straight up grifting right? Legitimately almost every single person working for BAH, Deloitte, PWC, etc. has a completely pointless job.

That's a pretty extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims merit extraordinary evidence.

I'm just catching up on this thread but I had to jump in on that one.


editorial comment -
It's the kind of "common knowledge" that know-nothings like DJT
market in all the time. It resonates with a previously held point of
view and therefore is not robustly examined.

Yeah I am not at all surprised that this struck a nerve with people, considering lots of folks reading this thread are local and probably work for one of these companies. It still remains true that your job is very likely completely pointless and a waste of money.

If you want evidence, go look at what the govcon version of building an ecommerce website looked like with HealthCare.gov:

In August 2014, the Office of Inspector General released a report finding that the cost of the HealthCare.gov website had reached $1.7 billion.

Well, that totally adds up! Nothing to see here!

Go look at the bottomless well of failed defense contracting and IT projects.

None of this even addresses the rampant cronyism that amounts to the white collar version of Tony Soprano's no-work union jobs. The government contacting apparatus is largely one big scam that transfers tax payer money into the pockets of corporate executives. I would agree that there is *some* value being transferred back *sometimes* but it's a tiny fraction of the money exiting government coffers. Some of it is due to incompetence and some of it is outright corruption. The distinction doesn't really matter though because the net of it is still that your job probably shouldn't exist.

[dobrojim]

full disclosure

I'm now retired after 27 years of fed service for NIH. Most of that time I played a role
supporting research into neurological disorders. Eventually tech changed, budget pressures
resulted in my science job going away. For the last few years I worked in procurement.
Claiming that (all) contractors/consultants do nothing for the money they make
is a specious claim. My personal bias would be for more people to be fed employees
and not work for contractors to do public work. But that is not a popular point of
view in recent years.

[gtn130]

I literally did not once say all contractors. The vast majority should not exist, there are *some* that are likely doing something of value. It saddens and disappoints me that someone would use such a Trumpian tactic of misrepresenting my argument.

[TGW]

Wow, you don't say! You realize that like 90% of federal government consulting/contracting is straight up grifting right? Legitimately almost every single person working for BAH, Deloitte, PWC, etc. has a completely pointless job.

That's a pretty extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims merit extraordinary evidence.

I'm just catching up on this thread but I had to jump in on that one.


editorial comment -
It's the kind of "common knowledge" that know-nothings like DJT
market in all the time. It resonates with a previously held point of
view and therefore is not robustly examined.

I'm in federal contracting (civilian, not defense); I tend to lean in the direction of 90% grift. Maybe that's too high. Maybe it's more like 60%. But alot of it is a grift nonetheless.

Civilian contractors and defense contractors are wildly different. The defense contracting world is 99.9% grifting. They send lobbyist (many times, it's former/retired high ranking officers) to the WH and CH to push some war, train some rebel group or police force (which they claim are legitimate...at that time), or build some facility somewhere in some random country like Niger. And then the gov't releases funds, RFPs are released, and the defense contractors go after it.

It's straight Banana Republic bull with the defense contractors. And it's why I hate the Democrats; they support this rampant swamp mentality just as much as Republicans do.

[TGW]

full disclosure

I'm now retired after 27 years of fed service for NIH. Most of that time I played a role
supporting research into neurological disorders. Eventually tech changed, budget pressures
resulted in my science job going away. For the last few years I worked in procurement.
Claiming that (all) contractors/consultants do nothing for the money they make
is a specious claim. My personal bias would be for more people to be fed employees
and not work for contractors to do public work. But that is not a popular point of
view in recent years.

That's how it SHOULD be structured. The fact that a middleman reaps profit on research funded by taxpayer money is a massive grift.

[Ruzious]

full disclosure

I'm now retired after 27 years of fed service for NIH. Most of that time I played a role
supporting research into neurological disorders. Eventually tech changed, budget pressures
resulted in my science job going away. For the last few years I worked in procurement.
Claiming that (all) contractors/consultants do nothing for the money they make
is a specious claim. My personal bias would be for more people to be fed employees
and not work for contractors to do public work. But that is not a popular point of
view in recent years.

Agreed - my brother works for a contracting company that's set up at a US military base doing much of the government's research on several diseases. There's no good reason to have a middleman contractor involved - he and his group should be government employees. It's just the way the system is set up.

[Zonkerbl]

I agree that there are coworkers of mine that would be fired under normal circumstances. But look. I went to work at a new office at DOC and they created the office basically by all other office managers giving us their worst performers. And even then the amount of deadweight wasn't 90% (and that's including the 70 year old guy who used to fall asleep during meetings). If you think 90% of the people working for you are deadweight, that says a lot about you as a manager.

Contracting is a tool we use when we really desperately need someone to do a good job on something we know we don't have the skills for.

Agree that the entirety of the whole military/industrial complex is a grift, but that doesn't mean contractors are acting in bad faith.

[dobrojim]

Here is exactly what was said

Process improvement is process improvement in business as in government.

No, it's not! You say this, but it's not true. Running the federal government and running a healthcare company are not the same thing even if they can both benefit from the broad nebulous concept of "process improvement".

Do you not understand that McKinsey also provides services to governments to increase productivity for better government services? Is that a bad thing?

Wow, you don't say! You realize that like 90% of federal government consulting/contracting is straight up grifting right? Legitimately almost every single person working for BAH, Deloitte, PWC, etc. has a completely pointless job.

And to say that it is a mark against Buttigieg that he was in business (on the consulting side) shows your bias against business.

I'm not saying this, though. I actually said quite explicitly that I'm not vilifying anyone for being in "business" but I do think consulting is often either an outright scam due to its inefficacy or is detrimental to society. There is a massive difference between starting a business that creates things and being a knowledge worker who makes decks for Big Pharma or whatever.

Just like it Biden being a public defender before being in government, ect..

Would you trust Joe Biden to represent you in any legal setting?

[gtn130]

Agree that the entirety of the whole military/industrial complex is a grift, but that doesn't mean contractors are acting in bad faith.

I don't think that like random employees at Booz Allen are working in bad faith at all. I do think the people negotiating the contracts absolutely 100000% are acting in bad faith.

[gtn130]

Here is exactly what was said

Yeah, quoted directly contradicts what you said (all vs "like 90%"). What am I missing here?

Now you're just gaslighting me like that big mean guy Donald J Trump. Very sad the level of discourse we've reached where both sides are basically Donald Trump. Everything is the same. You are Donald Trump.

[JWizmentality]

I've been saying this for a while. Something stinks to high heaven in the GOP. Their fealty to Trump is beyond just fear of the base. Now McCarthy is implicated in this Parnas mess. The GOP has been pulling money from Russians for a while and many are in on it. They are hiding a huge scandal.

[Zonkerbl]

I've been saying this for a while. Something stinks to high heaven in the GOP. Their fealty to Trump is beyond just fear of the base. Now McCarthy is implicated in this Parnas mess. The GOP has been pulling money from Russians for a while and many are in on it. They are hiding a huge scandal.

That's my intuition as well. All the top Republicans seem to be in on it/implicated

[queridiculo]

Listening to every GOP stooge of the house judiciary panel, mind blown.

The amount of distortions, misrepresentations and straight up lies, incredible.

[dckingsfan]

Here is exactly what was said

Yeah, quoted directly contradicts what you said (all vs "like 90%"). What am I missing here?

Now you're just gaslighting me like that big mean guy Donald J Trump. Very sad the level of discourse we've reached where both sides are basically Donald Trump. Everything is the same. You are Donald Trump.

Step back from the cliff... 90% or all - same thing (basically). You are misinformed about contracting both at private and public corporations.

Outsourcing has its place in both private and public industry. Especially, when the skills aren't available or won't be used continuously.

We started this thread because you said that Buttigieg should be disqualified because he worked as a consultant.

And now:

I don't think that like random employees at Booz Allen are working in bad faith at all. I do think the people negotiating the contracts absolutely 100000% are acting in bad faith.

Which is basically what Buttigieg was doing.

[Pointgod]

this buttigieg talk does have me wondering what is it about booker that people don't like. he's got the credentials and walks the walk when it comes to track records re: public servant.

There are two reasons why Booker and Castro haven’t gotten more consideration for President despite being infinitely more qualified than Buttigieg. Race and the media’s obsession with finding the great white hope that will somehow turn out the white working class in middle America. However that blows away the argument that Trump won because of economic reasons not race. Both Booker and Castro have had more progressive economic policies that would help the working class but they’ve gotten no credit for it.

The second reason is that Pete is the shiny new object in the eyes of the media and that’s heavily influenced that the primary starting in Iowa and New Hampshire.