[squigz]

> It's a historically obvious phenomenon. Basically all human organizations tend toward inefficiency and waste eventually

It's not that obvious to me, and is such a broad assertion that I'd require more than an "Everyone knows it. Just look at history" explanation to accept it as fact.

It also implies 2 things that I would disagree with

1) That the inefficiency and waste increases over time. It's likelier to me the ratio of those things stays the same, but it's more apparent as it scales - a company "wasting" 2% of its budget is vastly different than the US government "wasting" 2% of its budget.

2) That it's inherent to "human organizations" themselves - this doesn't seem to explore any other possible explanations. Given the nature of the discussion, I would think it's worth discussing whether other factors (like capitalism) might have an effect

(We'll ignore the vagueness of terms like "inefficiency" and "waste" with regards to government spending; not everyone agrees on what things are efficient or not. There are also many ways of measuring efficiency for both long- and short-term outlooks.)

[TheOtherHobbes]

When ever anyone talks about government inefficiency, ask what perfect efficiency would look like.

Nail them down to specifics. Not just improvements, but perfect efficiency.

Guaranteed they will soon start to flounder, because "inefficient government" is a propaganda talking point, not a fact that can be established with any workable economic definition.

And "the deficit" is the difference between what government chooses to spend and chooses not to tax.

A huge proportion of government spending is either/both an investment and/or a direct driver of beneficial economic activity. That includes "unworthy" spending like welfare.

[jfengel]

Dilbert is about a corporation, not government. Everyone seems to know that every large organization has some inefficiency. They seem to think the government has it worse, because that's what Republicans have been telling them.

It's no worse for government than any other large organization. Better than expected, given it's size.

[ethbr1]

A oft-missed point is what's required for redress of waste at scale: more spending.

It costs money to save wasted money.

Sometimes, that equation is net positive and other times net negative. But it's never financially efficient to reduce waste to zero.