[chriscrisby]

I’ve been in government contracts. Been on the teams that built the websites or whatever. It’s always some massive Fortune 500 company with a VP that was college roommates with a politician or went to West Point with a general. Of course when government guys give big congrats they immediately get booked as a very well paid speaker at some useless conference.

[pclowes]

In defense of this process is the government needs to work with stable companies that are highly likely to be in business in 10-15 years. That rules out a lot of startups.

Networks matter and trust matters, they should prefer to do business with people they know!

That doesn't mean there shouldn't be accountability and investigations into cushy speaking gigs. But the government should absolutely work with established companies run by executives they know.

[chriscrisby]

The best example I can think of was the healthcare portal. It was given to a company that had no experience over Intuit who had pas performed that included Turbo Tax. The company that won the contract had a board member who was classmates with the First Lady. This is so common it’s not even news. Government tech work is all done by contractors whose connections have nothing to do with past performance or quality.

[pclowes]

That should definitely be looked into. Also I would be surprised if a significant company was MORE than one relationship away from the White House or an influential senator. These networks are small at the top.

[account42]

No, the government should demand that the work is open so that any other contractor can continue it if needed.

[pclowes]

What do you mean by open? A lot of government work is very sensitive. Also I have yet to find an industry where contractors are fungible and swapping the works effectively.

[klipt]

Would be nice to have anti corruption measures to prevent this kind of decentralized corruption.

But I don't think dismantling the government and giving the pieces to Musk is the solution to corruption. That just sounds like more centralized corruption.

[tastyfreeze]

How, exactly, do you excise entrenched corruption smoothly? The corrupt people are going to do everything they can to stop you and protest loudly in the process.

The current problem is corruption but the real problem is that corruption will always happen when the power is there. The only way to prevent it is to not place the power at that level in the first place.

Limited power is the only anti-corruption tool that works.

[rat87]

Limiting the power of the goverment also freqently involves corruption, companies bribing politicans to avoid popular safety and labor regulations

[tastyfreeze]

I think you are missing the point. Corruption is inevitable. Limiting the scope of the government restricts the scope of possible corruption.

[klipt]

Limiting the scope of the government restricts the scope of possible government corruption.

But there's still corporate corruption. Corruption among charities. Corruption among churches. Etc.

There are trade offs everywhere. If you make your government too small to bust monopolies, then you end up with a country beholden to giant corrupt monopolies.

[rat87]

Its not inevitable at least at scale. You can build a good goverment with transperancy and minimal corruption. Its just hard.

[Jensson]

Only worked in smaller countries, ie states. Limit the power of federal government and you can get pretty nice states, and you wouldn't have to worry about someone like Trump.

[klipt]

Increased transparency might help, together with empowering voters to get rid of corrupt politicians.

Unfortunately right now the opposite seems to be happening, Trump funneled US taxpayer money (and foreign government money) into Mar-a-Lago his whole first term and still got reelected.

[account42]

More important than transparency is consequences for engaging in corruption. Negative reinforcement is something missing for politicians in general.

[watwut]

Musk is corruption. He does not want to solve it, he is literally trying to ensure it happens more and without any risk.