[ExI] Outsourcing Washington

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
Subject: Outsourcing Washington

 

 

Adrian wrote

 

>. moved parts of the Department of the Interior to Colorado during his
first term, and wants to distribute Washington's swamp around the United
States more during his second term.-Kelly

 

 

Colorado is the most logical place I can think of for the Department of
Interior.  That one is a no-brainer.  I picture the kinds of people who are
really well-suited for that kind of work: flat-brimmed Stetson with four
dents in top, olive trousers, khaki shirt, looks kinda like. well. me.  I
don't care how good the job is, I would never neeeeever live in DC, no way
Jose.  Denver area, sure, in a heartbeat.  OK then, what kind of person goes
to DC to work for the Department of Interior please?  People with an eye to
climb the political ladder, not those who are best suited to DoI stuff or
life in the Denver area.  DC is overcrowded, dangerous and expensive as all
hell.  Denver is really nice. 

 

>.One might go a step further, and wonder why most of these departments need
to be in a single central location at all.

 

They don't, and there are huge disadvantages to having all that in DC.  The
bureaucracies attract all the wrong kind of people.  They meet in bars in
the evenings and corrupt each other.

 

>. Department of Energy have shown that it has begun to more fully
distribute itself all over the US.

 

Adrian the space biz was intentionally scattered to hell and gone back in
the old days so expertise could survive in case the commies nuked us, but
even more importantly, to get the congresscritters to support the space
program because they had NASA dollars coming into their states and
districts.

 

While space stuff was scattered to hell and gone, bureaucratic power was
centralized around DC.  Then. times changed.  Now there really isn't good
justification for scattering our space stuff and every justification for
scattering bureaucracies.  Oh this useta drive me up a tree, since I was
travelling a lot to subcontractors.  Soooo damn much time was wasted in the
air, and it was always to places I just really didn't wanna go.

 

Elon Musk came along and realized he needed to build rockets and satellites
with all his subcontractors right there within a coupla hours drive at most
from the launch site.  This is sooooo much more efficient.  Efficiency
doesn't matter to a bureaucracy, but it does to a private business.  Now,
bureaucracies will work better if they are scattered to hell and gone: it is
cheaper living out there, and the bureaus stop attracting those who are
really looking for DC power jobs.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

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