[FirmwareBurner]

Let's do a thought exercise on your loaded question, considering government waste and corruption has been thoroughly covered by journalists since the invention of the free press and are a Google search away for you.

If I don't post sources, then you just accept government corruption doesn't exist, simply because nobody Googled for you?

If I do post sources, then what? Do you just suddenly change your mind and accept that stuff documented by the press it does exist?

Where, in good faith, were you hoping this conversation leads to when you were asking that?

[vannevar]

I think the point is that while people have indeed groused about government waste since the dawn of government, when people actually study it, they find that the rate of fraud and waste is comparable to the private sector. See, e.g., https://www.epsu.org/sites/default/files/article/files/EN_EF... for web.pdf and https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=8997844....

It's not that there's any more fraud or waste in government than in private business, it's that it's less tolerated. I think the main reason for this misperception is that in the private sector, people pay a la carte for particular goods and services, while in the public sector, people pay for shared infrastructure even if they rarely use it themselves. So they are left with the feeling that they aren't getting their money's worth. But of course everyone benefits economically and socially from a stable and prosperous society, even if they can't put their finger on discrete services they use. The reality is that it simply costs a lot of money to maintain a large, modern society. Indeed, it actually costs more than we are paying here in the US, as evidenced by a growing debt that has been a bipartisan creation.

Believing in the mantra of waste, fraud and abuse is comforting, because it implies we could be getting all the same benefits for less money. But there really is no such thing as a free lunch.

[potato3732842]

>it's that it's less tolerated

You say that like it's a bad thing.

If my favorite restaurant decides to hire management by nepotism and product degrades I can just not go there.

You can't just not deal with the government so of course the standards ought to be higher.

[vannevar]

If your democratically elected government spends money in ways you find unwise, you can vote for someone else, so that also tends to self-correct (albeit on a longer time scale).

The problem isn't the obvious things, in the government or your restaurant example. It's the less-obvious things---your favorite restaurant might cheat on its inspections, for instance. The rate of food poisoning there may go up, but you'll still be unlikely to be the one that gets sick. And the prices will go down slightly, as they are able to cut corners. This kind of "waste, fraud, and abuse" tends to go to an equilibrium, where the cost of finding and eliminating the fraud is similar to the cost of the fraud itself. And this equilibrium happens in both government and the private sector.

The idea that a modern technological nation of hundreds of millions of people could dramatically cut its spending and maintain its standard of living is a utopian fantasy.

[FirmwareBurner]

>If your democratically elected government spends money in ways you find unwise, you can vote for someone else, so that also tends to self-correct

Not if all the candidates choose to spend money in the same unwise ways.

[vannevar]

Then inefficiency isn't the problem, the problem is that your views aren't aligned with the country you're living in.

[Loughla]

I didn't read that at all. It reads as a statement of fact, not a values judgement.

[nkrisc]

> If I do post sources, then what? Do you just suddenly change your mind and accept that stuff documented by the press it does exist?

Then I can read them, find similar sources, judge how much I trust them, and get a better idea of how much corruption and waste you are claiming exists.

While I am sure corruption and waste occurs, if it’s such a serious problem, there ought to be some evidence of it, direct or indirect.

What’s the alternative, I just accept your claim as fact? Or I “google” it until.. what? I find sources that support your claims?

Why should I believe you?

[FirmwareBurner]

> Or I “google” it until.. what? I find sources that support your claims?

Yes?! Is that too much to ask for that you do research before commenting?

>Why should I believe you?

I didn't tell you to believe me, I told you to go do your own research if you don't believe me.

[nkrisc]

If you’ve done the research already, why not share it with your original comment?

[potato3732842]

>If I do post sources, then what? Do you take your words back and admit that stuff documented by the press it is real?

If you post sources he will nitpick them to all hell. It's a classic bad faith argument move since it moves the discussion from one of the subject to one of source validity.

You usually see HN's resident handful of chronically linkposting jerks do it in the other direction (i.e. they make some insane statement and shit out cherry picked sources to back it up and it's up to everyone else to disprove them) but I suppose it could be used in this way too.

[ethbr1]

It's not bad faith when it's a legitimate request, which depends on the assertion.

If I say the sky is blue because of plane chemtrails, and you ask me for a source, that seems valid.

As with any large procurement system, there is moderate government waste in proportional terms, but one of the primary drivers of that waste is... anti-corruption systems operating as intended.

If you require 4 more forms than private sector, in order to be more sure there isn't corruption, then you've just imposed a cost that creates no value.

[FirmwareBurner]

>It's not bad faith when it's a legitimate request, which depends on the assertion.

No offence, but comparing asking for proof of corruption with proof of sky being blue of petrochemicals is a biased bad faith argument.

Asking for sources on corruption is more like asking for proof that the earth is round, which is definitely not a legitimate request, but more trolling masquerading like an innocent request and dodge scrutiny ("It's just a question bro, why r u mad lol").

Nothing wrong with asking such a question per-se, but that's something you can also google yourself due to countless occurrences from legitimate sources, hence why it's in bad faith to ask such a thing from others, and should be more strictly moderated as many here abuse this "sauce or gtfo" attitude in bad faith to discredit a pov without providing any arguments.

[ethbr1]

> Asking for sources on corruption

Existence of corruption isn't what you asserted.

>> how much taxpayer money governments loose via waste and corruption

That's the assertion you made -- waste and corruption at scale.

It's very much a reasonable question to ask for sources of how much there actually is.

Otherwise, people just post things on the internet insinuating that there's a huge (unspecified) amount.

Is it 1% of the budget? 5%? 25%? (Hint: it should be trivial for you, the claimant, to dig up a source. And it's close to one of those)